Seann Walsh

Sean Christopher Walsh (born 2 December 1985), known professionally as Seann Walsh, is an English stand-up comedian and actor.

He was one of the 'All Stars' contestants in series 2 of I'm a Celebrity... South Africa, first aired on ITV on Easter Monday 6 April 2026.

Early life

Walsh was born in Camden in London and in his early years lived in Lewisham with his mother, father and younger brother. Throughout Walsh's upbringing, his father was addicted to heroin and Walsh has spoken about this experience in his stand-up comedy specials "Kiss" and "Seann Walsh: Is Dead, Happy Now?".

He attended St Winifred's primary school in Lewisham before his family moved to Brighton for his mother's work. In Brighton he attended Dorothy Stringer School for high school and he left the school with one GCSE examination pass in Drama. Walsh has said he plagiarised coursework and was consequently kicked out of college. He has spoken of being hyperactive, regularly using cannabis at school, and being suspended several times.

When Walsh was young he would often watch Jim Carrey films and Lee Evans stand-up specials and would repeat lines and re-enact scenarios from the films. When Walsh was 17 he attended a stand-up comedy club in Brighton and this experience contributed to his interest in beginning stand-up comedy.

Walsh worked at the Roundhill pub in Brighton and at a TK Maxx shop,, but he was sacked from TK Maxx when he fell asleep at work.

Career

In 2006 Walsh attended a stand-up comedy course run by Jill Edwards comedy workshops and held at the Komedia comedy club in Brighton and he performed his first gig in November 2006. Walsh went on to become the resident host of the newcomer stand-up comedy night Comic Boom, held at Komedia and he won several awards early in his career including Leicester Mercury Comedian of the Year (2009) and Chortle Best Newcomer (2009). Walsh supported Stephen K. Amos on his 2008/09 Find the Funny and 2009/10 The Feelgood Factor tours, as well as at the 2010 Reading and Leeds Festival. Early on in his career he was also an 'audience wrangler' performing stand up for the QI audience prior to the recording of the show.

In 2008 Walsh attended the Edinburgh Fringe Fetival for the first time participating in the "So You Think You're Funny" newcomers competition as well as performing at the Free Edinburgh Fringe Festival and by 2018 he had attended 8 times. In 2009 Walsh appeared in his first solo show at the Edinburgh Fringe and he has commented "The first time I did a solo show in Edinburgh, four years ago, I had a panic attack on stage. I'd always wanted to do comedy, but there was too much stress. If you had a bad gig, there was no time to recover from it, and the next night you'd have another bad gig. I'd been smoking and drinking coffee all day, and it was drink, drink, drink after each show, and that was bound to have repercussions. For some reason I walked on stage and started at the wrong point in my act. I skipped the first 10 minutes and I couldn't get back. I couldn't breathe and I had a strange feeling in my teeth and I thought I was going to die. Then I just collapsed, I fell to the floor; the show had to stop and people had to leave." Walsh has further commented on his experiences with nerves in interviews with the media as well as on his podcast Class Clown, "Vittoria Angelone: '...let's put on a comedy night for the next freshers week and I'll host it. So I just MC'd. It was my first gig to 300 people.' Walsh: 'What?... ...And, and knowing you um from what everything you've said today, that didn't phase you at all?' Vittoria Angelone: 'Naivety, ignorance, no idea it was supposed to be hard.' Walsh: 'Oh man, I'm sorry, but I mean that's incredible because me starting sounds very similar to your, uh, your experience, believe it or not and I... knew what standing in front of 300 people was. That would have absolutely terrified me.'"

Walsh performed both his 2012 show Seann to Be Wild and his 2013 show The Lie-In King at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival as well as touring the country with both.

In 2013 Walsh attended a stand-up comedy competition in Brighton and saw Romesh Ranganathan performing and asked Ranganathan if he could be his warm up act on his stand up tour. Whilst on tour in 2013 Walsh would also appear on Stand Up for the Week and he was able to get Ranganathan a stand up gig as a warm up act for a press launch they were doing for the show and the producers of Live at the Apollo watched the gig Ranganathan performed at and later asked him to appear on series 9 of Live at the Apollo which was his first stand up TV performance.

He has also performed his solo show on tour with fellow comedian Josh Widdicombe in a tour titled Ying and Young.

From 2011 to 2013 Walsh appeared as a regular contributor on Stand Up for the Week, where Walsh would perform stand up to a live audience using material taken from current events in the media in his routine. For 4 series from 2014 to 2017 Walsh was a team captain on the comedy panel show Virtually Famous. On the show two teams are shown viral videos from the internet and they are then asked questions about them as well having to act out tasks in the same way that they're being done in the videos and the format for the show was very similar to Never Mind the Buzzcocks.

From 2017 to 2018 Walsh presented a weekly show on FUBAR Radio with comedian Mark Simmons that gave a comedic view of current events in the media.

From 8 September 2018, Walsh participated in the sixteenth series of Strictly Come Dancing with professional dance partner Katya Jones. Early in the series, it was reported that he had become romantically involved with Jones despite both of them being in long-term relationships, and his popularity suffered as a result. Walsh and Jones did an interview with Zoe Ball following the controversy, where after a televised grilling from Ball, Walsh apologised. The couple were voted out in Week 6.

In 2019 Seann co-hosted Flinch, a gameshow for Netflix alongside Lloyd Griffith, and Desiree Burch. In the show contestants are put in circumstances that are discomforting, painful and scary, with the goal being to not flinch as if they do, the contestants receive a painful consequence and the hosts, who are being represented by the contestants, receive points.

In 2022, Walsh participated in Series 22 of I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here! on ITV1, and finished in 5th place on 25 November 2022.

In 2026, he returned to I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here, this time appearing in the spin-off series I'm a Celebrity... South Africa, which is also aired on ITV1. In this series memorable contestants from pervious series return to the show which is now located in South Africa and they participate in survival trials to determine who is going to be eliminated from the show with only the winner being determined by a public vote. Walsh was eliminated first following team leader Harry Redknapp being given the responsibility to eliminate one of his team members after he lost an eating trial to Jimmy Bullard, a member of the opposing team.

Walsh's stand-up style has been described as "impressively universal, gag-heavy, observational".

Personal life

Walsh's relationship with actress Rebecca Humphries ended in October 2018 after a video and photos of him kissing his Strictly Come Dancing partner Katya Jones were published. It was later reported that Jones and her husband Neil Jones had separated as an indirect result of the incident. In a now-viral tweet, Humphries stated that Walsh had called her “mental” and “psycho” for voicing her suspicions about his relationship with Jones in the weeks leading up to the incident.

In her 2022 memoir Why Did You Stay?, Humphries wrote that Walsh had reacted similarly when confronted about other instances of inappropriate behaviour throughout their five-year relationship. Humphries described Walsh as an emotionally abusive, controlling, and aggressive partner, and stated that several women had come forward following the Strictly scandal to reveal Walsh’s numerous past affairs. Walsh subsequently incorporated his experiences on Strictly into his standup act. In March 2022, he described how the incident was still "trauma" for him and how he underwent treatment for depression and anxiety, to help him cope with the fallout.

Walsh has been in a relationship with dance teacher Grace Adderley since 2019. They live in Shepherd's Bush, London, and welcomed their first child, a daughter, in February 2023. He is a Queens Park Rangers fan.

Once Walsh became old enough to attend pubs and bars he would regularly go drinking with his friends and he has included his experiences of being drunk and having hangovers in his stand-up routines.

In his early twenties, Walsh used to regularly smoke cigarettes.

In 2008 and 2009 Walsh attended the Edinburgh Fringe Festival for the first time.

Appearances

Television

Film

Radio

• Loose Ends v BBC Radio 4 (March 2009)
• The Jon Richardson Show – BBC 6 Music (November 2009)
• Nick Grimshaw's Radio Show – BBC Radio 1 (June 2010)
• Matt Forde's Show – Talksport Radio (May & June 2010)
• Act Your Age – BBC Radio 4 (April 2011)
• Scott Mills Radio Show - Innuendo Bingo – BBC Radio 1 (10 April 2015), (27 January 2017)
• News-ish with Seann Walsh and Mark Simmons - FUBAR Radio (2017 - 2018)
• Romesh Ranganathan - BBC Radio 2 (2 August 2025)

Podcasts

• Class Clown - Spotify, YouTube, Apple Pocasts, Play Podcasts (2025 - 2026)

Tours

Online releases

Awards

• Winner: Chortle award, best show 2023
• Winner: Leicester Mercury Comedian of the Year 2009
• Winner: Chortle Awards Best Newcomer 2009
• Second place: Hackney Empire New Act of the Year 2009
• Runner-up: Amused Moose Laugh Off 2008
• Runner-up: So You Think You're Funny 2008

See also

• List of I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here! (British TV series) contestants
• List of Strictly Come Dancing contestants

External links

• at IMDb
• Media related to Seann Walsh at Wikimedia Commons