Tom Daley is one of the country’s most beloved athletes and has been making waves since he was a teenager.
The 30-year-old diver will be hoping to take home gold once again when he and Noah Williams represent Great Britain in the synchronised diving 10m platform final on Monday morning.
And together with his fans, Tom’s His husband Dustin Lance Black, 20 years his senior, will no doubt be supporting him in the audience.
Tom revealed he met the film director, 50, at a “random dinner” in Los Angeles, and in December 2013 announced he was dating a “guy” who made him “feel so happy” and “so secure”, with the pair tying the knot in 2017.
As for the 20-year age gap between the two, Tom said: “One thing I learned early on is not to worry about what other people think. That’s come in handy since I’ve been with my husband. I’m 27 and he’s 47.”
Olympic diving star Tom Daley and Dustin Lance Black’s 20-year age gap relationship
The couple welcomed their first child together, a boy named Robert Ray, via surrogacy on June 27, 2018, and their second child, Phoenix Rose, on March 28 via surrogate.
“People have their opinions, but we don’t realise the age difference. When you fall in love, you fall in love,” she said in an interview with The Guardian.
When asked again about the 20-year age gap between the couple, Tom said he barely notices it.
She said: ‘Lance is the big boy in the house anyway. I consider myself an older person, so I have almost 200 houseplants, I knit and I like to be able to talk to people who have been through something similar to what I have experienced.
‘That’s where Lance and I connected a lot: he had lost his brother, I had lost my father, and then he lost his mother.
“We’d also been through the ups and downs of our careers and then the downs. It was something we could really connect with.”
Dustin appears to be a doting husband in every sense, as in addition to supporting Tom’s diving career and love of knitting, he was also seen supporting Tom as he received his OBE.
The couple welcomed their first child together, a boy named Robert Ray, via surrogacy on June 27, 2018, after announcing in February of the same year that they were expecting.
On March 28, they welcomed their second child, Phoenix Rose, via surrogate.
Tom and Dustin decided to go through the surrogacy process in the US, with Tom previously explaining that in the UK surrogates and fathers do not have the same legal rights.
The 30-year-old diver will be hoping to take home gold once again when he and Noah Williams represent Great Britain in the synchronised diving 10m platform final on Monday morning.
Along with his fans, Tom’s husband Dustin Lance Black, who is 20 years his senior, will no doubt be supporting him in the audience.
Dustin appears to be a loving husband as he supports Tom while he receives his OBE.
Dustin and Tom pictured at their first event together at Battersea Power Station in 2014
She said: ‘We’ve looked at it in the UK and the US. In the UK it’s much more complicated because surrogates are not as well protected legally, intended parents are not legally protected, it’s just not safe, there are a lot of hurdles to overcome.
‘In the United States everything is regulated so that everyone is safe and there the surrogacy process is much more agile.’
Tom previously revealed that he and American screenwriter Lance were drawn to surrogacy when they decided to have a child because they wanted to continue their family lineage.
Speaking to Giovanna Fletcher on her Happy Mum Happy Baby podcast in May 2022, Tom said: ‘Lance and I (…) had lost so many people in our families and there was something about surrogacy that appealed to us and it just meant that we could pass on to the people that we’d lost, their genes and their thoughts, their feelings, their personalities and to be able to bring someone into the world, that felt so extremely special.’
Tom previously explained that they both provided sperm to fertilise their surrogate’s eggs, but did not want to know who the biological father of their first child is.
Hinting at the possibility of having another child, she told The Times in 2020: ‘We found an egg donor and we’re sperm donors, we’ve fertilised half the eggs each.
Tom revealed he met the film director, 50, at a “random dinner” in Los Angeles, and in December 2013 announced he was dating a “guy” who made him “feel so happy” and “so secure”, with the pair tying the knot in 2017.
“People have their opinions, but we don’t realise the age difference. When you fall in love, you fall in love,” she said in an interview with The Guardian.
The couple welcomed their first child together, a boy named Robert Ray, via surrogacy on June 27, 2018.
Tom and Dustin decided to go through the surrogacy process in the US, with Tom previously explaining that in the UK surrogates and fathers do not have the same legal rights.
“We put in a boy embryo and a girl embryo and we don’t know who is who. Next time we’ll do it the other way around.”
Tom also spoke about the complications of having children as same-sex parents and revealed the concerns he had when he realized he was gay.
He said: ‘Once I started to realise I was gay, I asked myself: How am I going to have children in the future? What does this mean for me? What are the options?’
“I had to figure out exactly how that was going to work, looking at adoption, surrogacy and all these different things.”
Elsewhere, Tom and Lance have shown they are publicly supportive of each other after becoming embroiled in a feud with Sam Smith in 2016.
Dustin had a bitter argument on Twitter over Sam’s mistake.
Following the 88th Academy Awards, where Sam won Best Song for the James Bond theme Writing’s On The Wall, they and Dustin became embroiled in a bitter Twitter feud over a Sam gaffe.
The singer caused controversy by claiming to be the first openly gay star to win an Oscar.
Tom previously explained that they both provided sperm to fertilise their surrogate’s eggs, but did not wish to know who the biological father of their first child is.
Dustin and Tom pictured with friends on their first anniversary in 2014
Tom and Lance have publicly shown that they support each other after being involved in a dispute with Sam Smith in 2016 (Sam pictured in 2023)
Acclaimed screenwriter Dustin responded to the singer on Twitter after the incident, reminding Sam that he himself had won an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay in 2009 for Milk.
The openly gay star also took the opportunity to publicly slam Sam for “texting” her husband Tom, sparking a social media meltdown with his scathing comment.
At the time, Lance took to social media to shut things down with Sam in spectacular fashion, writing: “Hey @SamSmithWorld if you have no idea who I am it might be time to stop texting my fiancé.”
The LGBT rights activist added: “Here’s a start,” before sharing a link to a video of them accepting their award at the 81st Academy Awards from presenters Tina Fey and Steve Martin.
It is not known whether the couple ever buried the hatchet.