Joe Lycett breaks silence on life with baby son and 'thing that really surprised me'

Joe Lycett has spoken out for the first time about life with his new baby son. The Birmingham comedian, who lives in King's Heath, shocked the country last month when he revealed he had welcomed a baby boy with his girlfriend.

It was such a surprise to some that many thought it was a stunt from the comedian who has previously changed his name to Hugo Boss and created fake stories to get into newspapers around the world. Joe's son is very much real, and Joe opened up about his experience of becoming a father as he appeared on the Parenting Hell podcast with Josh Widdicombe and Rob Beckett.

Giving an update on his son, he told the comedians: "He's very well. He's just over six weeks." Speaking about what life with a newborn was like Joe said: "It's somewhere between lockdown and a long haul flight is what I think it is as an experience. And they're two things that I enjoy actually. I didn't love lockdown for the obvious bad things, but I enjoyed the simplicty of it and I enjoy a long haul flight so it's kind of fine."

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Joe, 36, also spoke about how his life has changed for him and his partner since the new arrival, saying: "We try and do one thing a day and the one thing might be going to the shop going to see a friend. But it's one thing and that is enough. There's a lot of extra admin."

He added: "The thing that has really surprised me is I've become really into sport..all the games are on between midnight and 5am so when you're up doing a feed there's something live on..you feel like your part of the world."

Joe revealed he is taking time off from work and having paternity leave to enjoy time with his son. Addressing the fact a lot of people thought his announcement that his son had been born was a 'prank', Joe revealed he had been criticised over how he had been holding his son in the announcement post.

Joe commented: "I was trying to work out what would the prank be? Because there's always an end game. What would the point of it be? You could turn it into all sorts of things but I do think it's bold to pretend you've had a baby isn't it. Lots off people thought he was a potato because apparently I wasn't holding his neck properly."

He also revealed he hadn't wanted to announce his son had been born so early, sharing he had been 'slightly encouraged by the great British press'. He continued: "We were very happy in our little sort of bubble and then it was sort of popped...I wanted to talk about it when I'd worked out how to talk about it...just live it."

He admitted: "It's unexpected for me to have a baby because lots of people think of me as the gay bloke off the telly essentially. But most of the time when I have talked about my sexuality I have been open about the fact I'm not gay."

Joe first announced he has a girlfriend, who he calls Denise to keep her identity private, on his Channel 4 show Late Night Lycett in April. He said at the time: "I've talked about being bisexual for years but people presume I'm homosexual based on my entire personality...yes I've got a girlfriend and people have been very nice about it."

Speaking on Drag Race star Bimini Bon-Boulash’s podcast The Pieces, Joe said: “So I’ve got Winston the cat, and my partner Denise. And, um, she’s not called Denise, but I don’t talk about her, because she has a job that she can’t be in the public eye. I call her Denise because she hates the name Denise, so, uh, I live with Denise.”

Joe also addressed his new sleeping pattern after welcoming his son. He said: "There's sort of no pattern...it takes a bit of time [to get him to sleep] but I put him on his side and do this shussing him essentially.

"We get about 3/4 hours and then we alternate." Joe said he was very much enjoying 'baby cinema day', where he and his partner have watched films including Heretic and Joker 2. Joe added: "It's violence and gore and it's just full of babies. It's fab."