Declan Donnelly

Declan Joseph Oliver 'Dec' Donnelly was born on September 25, 1975, in Newcastle upon Tyne, UK, to Alphonsus Donnelly and Anne Donnelly. He has three sisters—Camelia, Moira, Patricia, and three brother—Eamonn, Dermott and Martin. His parents, who originally hail from Northern Ireland, migrated to Newcastle in the 1950s. Donnelly went to St Michael's Roman Catholic Primary School and St Cuthbert's High School.

On November 13, 2014, Donnelly got engaged to his manager Ali Astall, whom he had been dating since 2013. They got married on August 1, 2015.

Donnelly likes to support charities—he is a patron of Sunshine Fund, and supports Text Santa and Diocese of Hexham and Newcastle. He co-founded W4 Youth, a community youth project in West London, in 2013.

Declan Donnelly first came to prominence for his portrayal of Duncan in ‘Byker Grove,’ a TV series that aired between 1989 and 2006. When he was 12, he saw an advertisement in a local newspaper looking for young actors for a TV show to be filmed in Newcastle. His father suggested that he audition for the show. He was successful in the audition, and it was on the ‘Byker Grove’ set that he met his future partner McPartlin. Donnelly also played the role of a stable boy in the adaptation of the novel ‘The Cinder Path’ in his early years.

With a strong friendship both on-screen and off-screen, Donnelly and McPartlin started doing shows as a duo, and started hosting the popular entertainment show ‘Ant and Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway’ in June 2002. In the show, they invite audience members to play some games and get a chance to win prizes. The duo also presents ITV's reality show ‘I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here!’

In 2006, they returned to acting, and starred in the film ‘Alien Autopsy’, a humor film about two British boys who are accused of having faked a documentary. They also starred in the film ‘Love Actually’ and in the pantomime ‘Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs’ at Sunderland's Empire Theatre, which was financially unsuccessful.

Next, they hosted ‘Britain's Got Talent’, which started in June 2007. In April 2009, the duo achieved wide international exposure when they interviewed ‘Britain's Got Talent’ contestant Susan Boyle.

They also hosted ‘The Royal Variety Performance’, a variety show held annually to raise money for the Royal Variety Charity. ‘Ant & Dec's ‘Push the Button’, a game show aired on ITV from February 2010 to April 2011, was also hosted by Donnelly and McPartlin. Then they proceeded to host ‘Red or Black?’, a TV game show, which was broadcast on ITV from September 2011 to September 2012.

When Donnelly and McPartlin released a single called ‘Falling’, the track kindled considerable controversy. A Welsh pop duo claimed copyright infringement, and accused that Ant & Dec had stolen their song and released it without their consent. As a result, their record label, Telstar Records, pulled the track from the British charts, and dropped them from the label.

The duo was also involved in another case of allegations of fraud in 2007, when investigation auditors at the auditing firm Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu found that their game show ‘Marathon’ and ‘Saturday Night Takeaway’ had defrauded viewers who participated via phone calls.