Strictly star Chris McCausland's dispute with 'chaotic' wife over daughter's request

Away from the glitzy Strictly Come Dancing ballroom, comedian Chris McCausland lives a happy life with his family, wife Patricia and daughter Sophie, in South West London

Chris McCausland might appear calm and in control on the dancefloor, but his real life is a little more chaotic.

The comedian, 47, is paired with Strictly Come Dancing professional Dianne Buswell in the BBC competition and the pair are among the favourites to lift the Glitterball Trophy. Chris, the first blind contestant in the show's history, lost his sight 20 years ago due to retinitis pigmentosa, a genetic disease.

His stand-up comedy talent has seen him land a TV role playing Rudi in CBeebies' Me Too! and have regular appearances on Have I Got News For You. But away from television screens, what sort of life does Chris live? Here, the Mirror takes a look at his loving family and net worth...

Chris is happily married to his wife Patricia and they share an 11-year-old daughter called Sophie. The couple met in 2005 when Chris was performing at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and Patricia was filming a documentary there.

"We spent a lot of time together when the camera wasn't running, socialising, going out and doing things, and we just had a lot of fun," he said. Chris said Patricia was "full of energy" and took him out of his comfort zone, while he made her laugh and was "almost this calming presence in her life that she was attracted to".

Patricia, who is from Brazil, brings "chaos" into their relationship, Chris previously said. "We were very opposite," he told Gyles Brandreth on his podcast Rosebud. "She comes across as very British but she's Brazilian, she came across when she was five or six. Her life is chaos in the way that Brazilian people are chaos.

"It's a natural attribute of their being that they are very proud of - they bring chaos to any room. The number of times she'll be talking in Portuguese to her mum and then I'll say to her: 'Are you okay? What happened there?' It sounds like they had the most horrific argument and they're just talking about what they're going to do that day."

The star revealed they have very different ideas when it comes to heating their home. "As you can imagine, we are very different in terms of our culture and our biological response to temperature," he joked.

"While my wife still needs a winter coat in 22-degree sunshine, I find it hard to cope in temperatures above about 26. I believe there's a high likelihood that one of us might be discovered lifeless in the hallway one day, reaching out towards the thermostat, while the other has fled the country."

The couple's daughter Sophie made a rare appearance on Comedians: Home Alone back in 2020, which showed her sitting with her dad at a kitchen table, laughing at something he said. But Sophie isn't the only little one at home - the family has a dog called Dora, though Chris wasn't overly keen about getting her.

Speaking to the Oh My Dog! podcast with fellow comedians Jack Dee and Seann Walsh, Chris explained that he was "against the idea" of getting Dora for lots of reasons. He said: "As a comedian, I travel a lot, I'm not around much. I knew it would massively restrict my wife and daughter's ability to be out and socialise.

"It would be one of those things that I got blamed for even though it wasn't my decision to get a dog. We live in a flat still with no immediate access to outside. I was like: 'Well why don't we just leave it a little bit. When we moved house we can look at getting a dog, and we can get a proper size dog.'

"Cut to two months later and we've got a tiny dog that's been specifically researched and purchased for flat life. It has massive separation anxiety, you can't get up without it following you around." He went on to joke that Dora is the runt of the litter and they needed to get an extra small harness for her injections, which was still too big.

As of 2021, Chris was worth £800,000 according to Net Worth Post. Of course, since then he's become significantly more well known, following appearances on the likes of Have I Got News For You and Live At The Apollo, as well as a radio slot on Radio 4. He also started his ITV programme The Chris McCausland Show over the summer.