Tess Daly’s real name is Tess that even her husband Vernon Kay doesn’t call her

Tess Daly has seriously led the Dance Company for nearly 20 years, but fans were blown away when they realized she was hiding her real name from the limelight.

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This Morning: Vernon Kay jokes about Tess Daly

Serious Come Dancing host Tess Daly has kept her real name a secret for decades.

The 52-year-old has always used the name Tess, and has presented the hit BBC One show under the moniker since 2004.

But fans were shocked to find out that the mother of two had a completely different name on her birth certificate.

Even her husband Vernon Kay didn’t call her by her real name, and her mother Sylvia was the only one to call her that.

In a new interview, Tess confessed she was actually named Helen Elizabeth Daly and hasn’t officially changed her name out of respect for her parents.

When she started her modeling career at the age of 17, someone named ‘Helen Davies’ at the agency, so Tess was asked to change her name because her name was deemed too similar.

“My mom is really the only one who still calls me Helen, and that’s not very often,” she told Weekend.

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

The TV star said she was given the name because her agent at the time was “obsessed” with actress Nastassja Kinski, who had starred in a 1979 film called Tess.

“So it was Tess. I am gullible and easy to impress. Mind you, two weeks later I was in Japan then traveling the world. Paris, Milan, New York,” she explained, adding that her agent thought she looked like German actress Nastassja.

“I never changed it with probate deed or anything because I thought that would be disrespectful to my parents,” she said.

Although Vernon doesn’t call her Helen, she was married to the TV man under her real name when they exchanged vows in 2003.

And Tess isn’t the only TV star to keep her real name a secret.

Morning and The X Factor host Dermot O’Leary isn’t actually called Dermot, and has used his middle name as his professional nickname for decades.

The 48-year-old, who has both British and Irish citizenship despite being born in Essex, is actually known as Sean Dermot Fintan O’Leary Jr.

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