Veteran BBC broadcaster David Hamilton, fondly known as “Diddy,” has revealed that he once “fell in love” with a sex worker during a difficult period in his life.
Hamilton, 87, became a household name in the 1970s as a presenter on BBC Radio 1 and Top of the Pops. He married makeup artist Sheila Moore at age 24, and the couple had two children, Jane and David Jr. Although he described the marriage as “happy,” he admitted that parenthood created distance between them.
Speaking to Best magazine, Hamilton recounted how he met Roz, a woman he later discovered was a sex worker, at Liverpool Street Station. “She was sitting on her suitcase wearing a fur coat she’d borrowed. I just looked at her and thought, wow,” he said. The two began an affair that lasted four years, during which Hamilton left his wife and children.
“My wife found out because I talked about Roz a lot. I was head over heels. We lived together for four years,” he said, adding that he even helped Roz start a small business before their relationship ended.
In 1993, a decade after they met on a blind date, Hamilton married his second wife, Dreena, who he described as “the wind beneath my wings.” Despite warnings about his past, Dreena accepted him, and the couple have remained together since.
Hamilton, who revealed in 2022 that he was diagnosed with polycythaemia vera—a rare blood cancer that increases red blood cell production—said he continues to live a full and positive life. “Everybody who sees me says how well I look. Too many red blood cells give you a rosy complexion, so it looks like you’ve got a sun tan,” he told The Daily Mail at the time.