Christine McGuinness reveals she dates women as she opens up about her sexuality

Christine McGuinness has shared that she dates women as she opened up about her sexuality following her split from former Top Gear host Paddy McGuinness.

The couple announced their divorce after 11 years of marriage in 2022, shortly after their documentary Our Family and Autism aired in 2021.

They continued living together in their seven-bedroom Cheshire home during the separation to focus on co-parenting their twins Leo and Penelope, aged 10, and Felicity, aged seven, before finalising the divorce in October of last year.

However, McGuinness, 37, has stated that media scrutiny over her private life has prompted her to come out and discuss her sexuality, according to ‘Independent’.

“I've struggled more because of the attention around my sexuality and that's something that I haven't discussed publicly and I haven't discussed it intentionally because for me it's took me years to process why it's big news who I date,” she told Elizabeth Day on the How To Fail podcast.

“It shouldn't matter somebody's gender. It never mattered to me.” McGuinness said her sexuality was “never a secret,” but tabloid attention following her split made her retreat “back into myself.”

“I went extremely quiet from feeling quite comfortable and happy and free,” she continued. “I almost was going backwards and I could feel myself shrinking and staying quieter because of the noise around it, it almost made me feel like, well, I must be doing something wrong because why would it be front page news?”

She explained that photos of her dating women had circulated “multiple times over three years,” and she believed interest would wane, but it hadn’t. “I've intentionally stayed quiet on it because I didn't want to draw any more attention to what is my normal.”

However, she now feels compelled to address the topic openly, despite being advised “to never discuss it ever.”

“It's just got to the point where I'm like, okay, if I don't actually acknowledge this at some point, then I don't know if it's ever going to go away, and I just want to be able to date and I want to be able to just enjoy it, and I want to be able to just feel free if I want to hold somebody's hand,” she said.

“It shouldn't matter if they're male or female, it shouldn't matter what their gender is. I shouldn't really even have to explain in any way who I want to spend my time with. That's my business.”

She added: “I'm just at the point where I think I've got a nice balance of going, yeah I date women and so what, what's the big deal? But also knowing that I don't have to go into big, massive detail about it either.”

McGuinness said she doesn’t feel comfortable labelling herself as lesbian or bisexual, but rather as a “free spirit,” adding: “That’s the only word I would put on it.” She explained that she first dated boys and girls when she was 14 or 15 years old and had her first kisses with people of both genders.