Sean Christopher Walsh (born 2 December 1985), known professionally as Seann Walsh, is an English stand-up comedian and actor.
His long and successful stand-up career, includes three appearances on Live at the Apollo, and an appearance on Michael McIntyre's Comedy Roadshow. Since 2009 he has made numerous appearances on comedy panel shows and between 2014, and 2017, he was a team captain on Virtually Famous over four series of the show. For six episodes in 2013 he hosted the TV show Seann Walsh World, and for 2 episodes in 2013, and 2014, he hosted the stand-up comedy show Seann Walsh's Late Night Comedy Spectacular. In 2019 he also co-hosted 10 episodes of the Netflix game show Flinch.
In 2022, he finished in 5th place in series 22 of I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here! In 2026, he was one of the contestants from previous series' of the show who returned to appear in the spin-off series, I'm a Celebrity... South Africa he was the first contestant to be eliminated, resulting in a 12th place finish.
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 smoking heroin and Walsh has spoken about this experience in his stand-up comedy specials "Kiss" and "Seann Walsh: Is Dead, Happy Now?". His father would regularly take his sons to Queens Park Rangers F.C. Walsh and his brother remain supporters of QPR, he has described the stadium, as his "happy place". Walsh senior, worked as a planning engineer, including on the extension to the Jubilee line, and he also worked for the British Rail project, developing the concept of tilting trains.
Whilst in London his family "moved about quite a bit" and one of the primary schools he attended, was St Winifreds R.C. Primary school, in Lewisham. His family then moved from London, to Brighton, to accommodate his mother's work and it was there, he attended, Dorothy Stringer School, leaving the community school with a single GCSE examination pass in Drama. Walsh has said that he plagiarised coursework and was consequently kicked out of college. He has spoken of being hyperactive and a habit of regularly using cannabis at school, he was subject to suspension, several times.
During his youth, Walsh would often watch films starring Jim Carrey and stand-up specials featuring Lee Evans he would repeat lines, and re-enact scenarios from their performances. When Walsh was 17, he attended a stand-up comedy club in Brighton and the experience sparked his interest in writing and performing, comedy stand-up.
Walsh worked shifts at the Round Hill pub in Brighton, and at TK Maxx, but he was sacked from the discount-store, for falling asleep at work.
Career
Walsh performing at Blackheath Halls. May 2019.Walsh performing at the Standon Calling music festival in Standon, Hertfordshire. July 2018
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 Festival 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 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 showVirtually 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. Walsh was the scorekeeper on Play to the Whistle for three series and in series two he also became the host's assistant.
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.
For six episodes in 2013, he presented the TV show Seann Walsh World and in 2019 Seann co-hosted the Netflix gameshow Flinch, 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. In 2026, he returned to appear in the spin-off show I'm a Celebrity... South Africa, which also aired on ITV1 and in this spin-off show memorable contestants from previous series return to the show which is now located in South Africa and they participate in survival trials to choose who is going to be eliminated from the show with only the winner being chosen by a public vote. Walsh was eliminated first after Harry Redknapp was asked to eliminate one of the team members on his team, as he had been made the team leader and had lost an eating trial he participated in against 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 is married to Grace Adderley a dance teacher, whom he met by chance in 2019, at a London Underground Station. He later re-enacted the first time they saw each other, with a romantic proposal of marriage. They previously lived in Shepherd's Bush London, and welcomed their first child, a daughter, in February 2023, and subsequently their son was born in 2025. Walsh supports Queens Park Rangers F.C..
Once Walsh became old enough to attend pubs and bars he would regularly go drinking with his friends and he includes his past experiences, of being drunk and having hangovers in his stand-up routines. He has been sober for several years. Walsh was also a former smoker of cigarettes in his twenties.
↑"AL MURRAY". YouTube.com. Class Clown. 16 March 2026. Event occurs at 19:16. Retrieved 17 April 2026. My dad was a planning engineer... ...He helped extend the Jubilee line in the millennium... But he also worked for British Rail. ...something to do with the tilting trains, I remember. AL Murray: The APT, the tilting train. Yeah. Advanced passenger train. I think we went on it once.
↑"FIN TAYLOR". YouTube.com. Class Clown. 16 March 2026. Event occurs at 14:20. Retrieved 17 April 2026. I moved when I was like, I moved about quite a bit in London. And for me that meant you having to constantly reset.
123"Interview: Seann Walsh: Page 2 of 2". Beyond the Joke. 11 August 2013. Retrieved 6 January 2025. Interviewer: 'Are you thinking of giving up drinking?' Walsh: 'I'm already sort of too busy to keep it up, I can't function on a hangover and when I'm doing TV it's office hours and I can't do it, so it can't go on forever, but I still have big sessions when there is a day off. And they will be big... ...But you have to look after yourself. I've started exercising to sort myself out, I do like to perform, as embarrassing as it sounds, and it is harder to become larger than life when drowsy and down... ...Interviewer: 'Do you suffer from nerves?' Walsh: 'I've lost count of the amount of times I've thought of just jumping on a plane to Dublin, hiding in a pub and not going to Edinburgh. Or just hiding in bed. But I just love it. When I was a kid Jim Carrey was a favourite. He inspired me to get into comedy when I was a child but smoking and drinking changes you. I could do everything Jim Carrey could do, like make my eyebrows go up and down. I trained myself for ages then you get older and it's not cool to do Jim Carrey impressions any more. I'm more interested in drinking and smoking and now I wish I'd stuck with the eyebrows. Ha ha ha.' Interviewer: 'Your Edinburgh picture, surrounded by kebab wrappers and empty bottles of alcohol sums up this stage in your life.' Walsh: 'I did the picture before I'd written the show, but I knew it was going to about drinking at some point. The poster would have fitted last years show and the show before that.'
1234"I TALK TO Seann Walsh". Italktelly.com. I talk telly. 15 July 2018. Retrieved 6 January 2026. Interviewer:'Can you believe it's been 10 years since you first performed at the Fringe and came runner-up in 'So You Think You're Funny?' ' Walsh:'Oh God!!! I didn't know that. That's horrible. Why have you told me that?! I remember that. I came second.'
12"Seann Walsh: Seann to be Wild". youtube.com. EdFestMagTV. 17 August 2012. Event occurs at 2:37. Retrieved 6 January 2025. Interviewer; '...I mean is this something youre, you ah struggle with and theres lots of hangovers and youre...' Walsh: 'In the show?... It's mainly about hangovers.' Interviewer; 'I remember there was a lot about hangovers last year... and very entertaining, I mean 'cos a lot of the festival crowd can really relate to having hangovers or had one while there sat in the audience.' Walsh;'OK, I hope they do, that'll work better if they do have a hangover. Um the ah, the show is, basically if you've been out, if you go quite large at the weekends I would say, um, when you should be doing things you told yourself you're going to do the next day then you'll like the show. 'cuz it's all about... ...I suppose I struggle, I'm somone that is always going 'Tomorrow, I'm gonna sort out my life, tomorrow, I'm gonna do it tomorrow, that's the day, I'm gonna sort out my life'. Which basically means 'I'm gonna clean my bedroom.'
↑"Seann Walsh". Sky Sports. 12 October 2011. Retrieved 17 October 2011.
↑Taylor, Ian (1 June 2013). "Seann Walsh". The Inside'R. Archived from the original on 25 September 2013. Retrieved 16 June 2013.
↑"Interview: Seann Walsh". beyondthejoke.co.uk. Beyond the Joke. 11 August 2013. Retrieved 6 January 2025. Interviewer: '...I interviewed Seann Walsh for The Independent on Sunday on the ups and downs of drinking. Walsh has something of a reputation as an imbiber. He has talked about it in his past shows and picks up the theme in his current show... ... What is The Lie-In King About?' Walsh: 'If it's about anything it's about trying to sort myself out. I moved to London and moved in on my own to get away from the person that I had been in the previous shows, but actually I was just trying to get away from myself and failing miserably. I talk about how I'm not a kid any more and I'm trying to live on my own. The idea was that by living on my own there is nobody to say "lets have a drink," but it's not working.'
↑"Seann Walsh - Live at the Apollo". youtube.com. Off The Kerb Productions. 27 May 2016. Retrieved 6 January 2025. 'Cos I find it very difficult to have the one. The one drink. That's my problem.
↑"Seann Walsh Cracker Night (2011)". Youtube.com. Sydney Comedy Festival. 3 October 2012. Retrieved 6 January 2025. Like, I've cut down on smoking now, but up until I cut down, I was smoking over 40 a day, right that's bad. The moment I realised "Fuck it, i need to stop. I need to cut down. I need to do something." is when I ran out of breath grating cheese.
↑"Interview: Seann Walsh: Page 2 of 2". Beyond the Joke. 11 August 2013. Retrieved 6 January 2025. Interviewer: 'Do you have a favourite Edinburgh story?' Walsh: 'The first time I was on Mock The Week I was in Edinburgh doing the Big Value Show. I was only 22 and that night i couldn't get into my flat and had to sleep on the main road outside using bin bags as pillows. In the morning people were having to step over me to get to work, going 'isn't that the bloke from Mock The Week?' '
↑"Seann Walsh". Comedy.co.uk. British Comedy Guide. Retrieved 6 January 2025.
12"Seann Walsh". spearswms.com. Spear's Magazine. 9 November 2018. Retrieved 2 January 2025.
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