Lee Mack and his wife will celebrate their 20th wedding anniversary this year (Image: Getty)
The 1% Club host, Lee Mack, has been with his wife, Tara McKillop (his real name is Lee McKillop) since they met as teenagers studying at Brunel University in 1996.
However, despite their almost 30-year relationship, Lee has admitted that certain people still assume they got together after he found fame and fortune through his stand-up comedy and TV shows, in particular, the sitcom Not Going Out.
They married in a small and intimate ceremony in 2005, just one year after welcoming their first child, Arlo. They now have three kids, with Millie and Louis joining their firstborn.
Yet Lee joked that some people believed she married him for his money. “We talked the other day with Roisin Conaty,” he said on his podcast, I Can’t Believe It’s Not Budda in 2021.
“Her sister met Tara and said, ‘I assume you two have been together after you became a comedian and got a bit of money’. And I said, ‘No, no, we met before I ever was a comedian when we were at university.’
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Tara McKillop and Lee Mack, pictured here in 2004, have been married since 2005 (Image: Getty)
“And she looked aghast at why this woman would be with me. And do you know what she said? ‘Did you save her life or something?’ I thought that’s an incredibly bold statement to make after five minutes of meeting someone,” he recalled.
Their family life and relationship is not without it’s quirks. In 2021, he confessed to the Walking the Dog podcast he never flies with Tara or his family when they go on holidays.
“If we go on holiday and we have done for the last couple of years Tara has flown with the kids and I’ve met them there. And I’m including Barcelona, I’m including Switzerland.”
In scenes that could have come straight from his long running sitcom Not Going Out he confessed: “You know why – they won’t let me sit up front and drive it. I’ve asked. I’ve said, ‘Yeah, of course I’ll fly – can I drive?’ and they said, ‘No, and you don’t drive a plane, you fly it’. And I’ve said, ‘Forget it then, I’ll go in the car.”
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Lee Mack and wife Tara McKillop have three children, pictured here together this month (January) (Image: Getty)
Indeed Lee has admitted mining their family life and his relationship for scripts for the show.
In a 2017 interview with Radio Times, he said: “The truth is I just wanted to write a sitcom about what I am in real life, which is a husband and dad of three kids.
It allows me to tap into stories that have an element of truth. It also means that when stuff happens to me in real life, I don’t get angry about it, I just write it down and use it.”
Although he has used them for material for the show, which last aired during Christmas 2023 having first broadcast in 2006, Lee admitted his wife and children aren’t huge fans of it, despite the fact both Arlo and Millie have appeared in it.
“They’re really not bothered whether it’s on or not. My wife doesn’t really watch it and although my eldest has just started to, it’s not his favourite show by a long way – and why would it be?”