Claudia Winkleman's peculiar habit that makes her husband almost 'burst into tears'

A quarter of a century into a marriage, one might think a couple finds a way to deal with one another’s quirks and habits. Well, that’s not quite the case for Claudia Winkleman and her husband Kris Thykier.

The Strictly Come Dancing host - fresh off the rousing success of the first series of The Celebrity Traitors, where she once again wowed in an array of outfits worth recreating this winter - revealed her obsession with baths (or rather, what she does after a bath) still leaves her husband of 25 years close to tears.

Talking on the SheerLuxe podcast, Claudia explained, "I like a bath… I like a bath melt. We've created a new bath melt. I like to go in there. I like a book, I like hair up, I like a clip, then I like to wrap myself like a yeti in 17 towels that I'm never going to hang up."

It’s leaving these damp towels around the house that leaves her husband on the brink of tears, Claudia joked.

"I've been married for 23 years, it makes him almost burst into tears but I can't help it. I want to help him but somehow I can't. They're like little atolls all around the room.

"Just small, damp threadbare areas that he has to tiptoe around, what are you going to do."

It’s rare for the popular personality to discuss more of her private life, but Claudia has touched on what life at home is like in the past.

She previously told the Evening Standard of her London home, "I can leave my house at 4am and buy a kebab, rent a movie and get some shampoo. I love my shower, my bread bin and our tortoise, Yoshi."

Claudia has also previously revealed another surprising fact - and if one ever gets an invitation to Claudia’s home, we know to expect towels on the floor and not a lot of mirrors.

Claudia shared in a 2014 podcast that she doesn't have a lot of mirrors in her home, after growing up in a house without any at all. Her mother, former newspaper editor Eve Pollard, raised her in a mirror-free house - and Claudia has followed suit with her own family home shared with her husband and their three children, Jake, Matilda and Arthur.

Per the Mirror, she is reported as saying, "I was brought up in a house without mirrors, so my mum is a huge believer in the shell is only that. What I look like, how I've done my eyeliner - that's not the shiz, the stuff is the inside, the chat, the brains, the laughs, the loyalty, the kindness, the cooking an extraordinary roast chicken."

"What you look like is the least interesting thing about you, it's got to be, because it is all going to fall apart, and I hope I've passed that onto my kids as well."

While her towel habit might drive her husband crazy, Claudia definitely has an excuse to celebrate with a long soak.

After the success of the first series - which saw an average of 11.1 million people tune in for the final, the biggest live audience of the year for a single TV show - the BBC confirmed that a second series of The Celebrity Traitors will air in 2026, alongside the fourth series of the regular version.