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Tess Daly shocks fans by revealing her REAL name – after changing it 20 years ago

Our minds are blown!

Tess Daly has shocked fans by revealing her real name, after changing it 20 years ago.

The Strictly Come Dancing host has admitted her birth name is Helen, but she started using the name Tess when she was trying to make it as a model.

The 51-year-old never officially changed her name as it would be “disrespectful” to her parents, but said her mother is the only person who still calls her Helen.

Speaking to Weekend magazine, she said: “My mum’s really the only person who still calls me Helen, and that’s not often.”

 

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“She tends to call me ‘love’, so when she does say ‘Helen’ it can take me a while to respond.”

Tess explained how she was told to change her name, after she joined a modelling agency who already had someone named ‘Helen Davies’ on the books.

She said: “My agent was obsessed with [the actress] Nastassja Kinski at the time, who was in the film Tess, and thought I looked like her. So Tess it was.”

 

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“I was gullible and impressionable. Mind you, two weeks later I was in Japan then travelled the world. Paris, Milan, New York.”

“I’ve never changed it by deed poll or anything because I think it would be disrespectful to my parents,” she added.

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