Tess Daly admits she ‘obsessively’ tracks daughter Phoebe using phone app

The Strictly Come Dancing presenter cannot shake her parental fear
Tess Daly monitors her daughter Phoebe, 18, with a phone app
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Escher Walcott4 May 2023
The Weekender

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Tess Daly keeps track of her 18-year-old daughter’s whereabouts using a phone app, she recently confessed.

The Strictly Come Dancing host, 54, revealed she knows where her daughter Phoebe is at all times, as she monitors her movements with a specialized app on her phone.

Daly said her mind is kept at ease when monitoring her daughters, whom she shares with husband Vernon Kay, though driving lessons have made her stress slightly harder as a parent.

“When your child starts to drive, that’s a whole new minefield,” Daly told host Sophie Ellis-Bextor on her Spinning Plates podcast.

“I’ve got that app LIFE360 and I track Phoebe on it obsessively until she gets to her destination.

“It’s because she’s a new driver and the relief when I see she’s reached it, you never stop worrying.

“She’s only gone for 20 minutes and I’m a nervous wreck, it’s ridiculous, loosen the leash."

Despite her worries, Daly and husband Vernon Kay hope their daughters “find their own paths”
Getty Images

Daly said she is aware she will have to drop her overseeing habits as her daughters grow older, but will be on hand to offer “mental hand-holding” whenever they need.

“You never stop parenting, I don’t know when that all-seeing eye ends,” the mum-of-two stated.

Daly previously expressed her “denial” at daughter Phoebe preparing to leave home, after turning 18 last year.

Appearing on Loose Women at the time, Daly joked: “She’s not ever leaving, I can’t think about it.”

Despite her worries as a parent, Daly has agreed with Kay, 49, that it is important their children follow their own paths in life.

Kay previously spoke about wanting his daughters to “find themselves”, telling MailOnline: "We let them be independent when it comes to them and their futures.

“It’s important that you allow them to find themselves, which is character building and personality development.

“Sometimes I think that the old silver spoon and life on a plate in front of them… I think that’s quite contradictory to how you want them to be."

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