Tom Daley is one of the country’s most beloved athletes and has been making waves since his teenage years.
The 30-year-old springboard diver will be hoping to take home another gold when he represents Great Britain in the 10m synchronised diving final with Noah Williams on Monday morning.
And together with his fans, Tom’s His husband Dustin Lance Black, who is 20 years his senior, will undoubtedly be there in the audience to support him.
Tom revealed that he met the 50-year-old film director at a “random dinner” in Los Angeles and announced in December 2013 that he was dating a “man” who made him feel “so happy” and “so safe.” The pair tied the knot in 2017.
Tom had this to say about the 20-year age gap between the two: “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, he’s 47.
Inside the 20-year age-gap relationship between Olympic diver Tom Daley and Dustin Lance Black
The couple welcomed their first child together, a son named Robert Ray, via surrogacy on June 27, 2018, and their second son, Phoenix Rose, via surrogacy on March 28
“People have their opinions, but we don’t notice the age difference. When you fall in love, you fall in love,” he noted in an interview with The Guardian.
When asked again about the couple’s 20-year age gap, Tom said he barely notices it.
He said: ‘Lance is definitely the big boy in the house. I consider myself an older soul, so I have almost 200 houseplants, I knit and I enjoy having conversations with people who have been through as much as I have.
‘Lance and I had a lot of contact there: he had lost his brother, I had lost my father, and then he lost his mother.
“We’d also gone through the highs of a career and then that dip. That was something we really connected with.”
Dustin appears to be a devoted husband: in addition to his support for Tom’s diving career and love of knitting, he was also spotted supporting Tom when he received his OBE (Order of the British Empire).
The couple welcomed their first child together, a son named Robert Ray, via surrogacy on June 27, 2018, after announcing they were expecting a child in February of that same year.
On March 28, they welcomed their second son, Phoenix Rose, via surrogate.
Tom and Dustin decided to go through the surrogacy process in the US. Tom previously explained that surrogates and parents in the UK do not have the same legal rights.
The 30-year-old springboard diver will be hoping to take home another gold when he and Noah Williams represent Great Britain in the 10m synchronised diving final on Monday morning.
In addition to his fans, Tom’s husband Dustin Lance Black, who is 20 years his senior, will undoubtedly be in the audience supporting him
Dustin appears to be a devoted husband in every way as he supports Tom as he receives his OBE
Dustin and Tom pictured at their first event together at Battersea Power Station in 2014
He said: ‘We’ve looked at it in the UK and the US. In the UK it’s much more complicated because surrogates aren’t as well protected, intended parents aren’t, it’s just not safe, there’s a lot of hurdles to jump over.
‘In the US, everything is arranged in such a way that everyone is safe. The surrogacy process is also much more streamlined in the US.’
Tom previously said that he and American screenwriter Lance were drawn to surrogacy when they decided to have a child because they wanted to continue the family line.
Speaking to Giovanna Fletcher on her Happy Mum Happy Baby podcast in May 2022, Tom said: ‘Lance and I […] “We had lost so many family members and there was something about surrogacy that appealed to us. It meant that we could pass on the people we had lost, their genes and their thoughts, their feelings, their personalities. And to bring someone into the world felt so incredibly special.”
Tom previously explained that they had both donated sperm to fertilize their surrogate mother’s eggs, but that they did not want to know who the biological father of their first child was.
In 2020, he told The Times that he might have another child: ‘We found an egg donor and we are the sperm donors, we both fertilized half of the eggs.
Tom revealed that he met the 50-year-old film director at a “random dinner” in Los Angeles, and in December 2013 he announced that he was in a relationship with a “man” who made him feel “so happy” and “so safe,” with the couple marrying in 2017.
“People have their opinions, but we don’t notice the age difference. When you fall in love, you fall in love,” he noted in an interview with The Guardian
The couple welcomed their first child together, a son 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 how surrogates and parents are not given the same legal rights in the UK
“We put a boy and a girl embryo in there and we don’t know whose. Next time we’ll do it the other way around.”
Tom also spoke candidly about the complications of having children as same-sex parents, as well as the concerns he had when he first discovered he was gay.
He said: ‘Once I realised I was gay, I thought: How am I going to have children in the future? What does that look like for me? What are the options?
“We had to figure out exactly how that would work, we had to look at adoption, surrogacy and all those different things.”
Tom and Lance have made public appearances elsewhere that they have each other’s backs after becoming embroiled in a feud with Sam Smith in 2016.
Dustin got into a heated argument on Twitter over a blunder by Sam.
After the 88th Academy Awards, where Sam won the award for Best Song for the James Bond song Writing’s On The Wall, they and Dustin got into a heated Twitter feud over a gaffe by Sam.
The singer sparked controversy when he claimed he was the first openly gay star to win an Oscar.
Tom previously explained that they both provided sperm to fertilize their surrogate mother’s eggs, but they did not want to know who the biological father of their first child is.
Dustin and Tom pictured with friends on their one year anniversary in 2014
Tom and Lance have publicly proven they have each other’s backs after feuding with Sam Smith in 2016 (Sam pictured in 2023)
Acclaimed screenwriter Dustin responded to the incident on Twitter, reminding Sam that he himself had won an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for Milk in 2009.
The openly gay star also took the opportunity to publicly criticize Sam for “texting” his husband Tom, a cutting comment that sparked outrage on social media.
Lance went on a spectacular social media rampage against Sam at the time, writing, “Hey @SamSmithWorld, if you have no idea who I am, maybe it’s 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, hosted by presenters Tina Fey and Steve Martin.
It is not known whether the pair ever buried the hatchet.