Curtains hung from wooden poles on one wall of the bedroom to represent his love of theatre; a pink moped rescued from a skip then restored by his handy dad in the garage; his parents fluttering around the kitchen, always reminding him how adored he was. For Owain Wyn Evans, his childhood home was a sanctuary from a world that didn’t always accept him.
“It was a refuge. I felt so safe there,” says Evans, whose modest childhood home near Swansea offered a stark contrast to life outside. Life was not easy growing up in the shadow of Section 28, which banned the “promotion” of homosexuality in schools, and the Government’s “Don’t Die of Ignorance” Aids campaign, with its notorious gravestone imagery.
“It felt like if you were gay, you were going to get it and die. It was complete bollocks and scaremongering, and it has a very unsavoury legacy,” says Evans, who was bullied for being an effeminate child.
“I hated going to school because of it, but I was lucky that I could go home and close the door,” he adds.
Having a home life that embraced his true self gave him the confidence to believe he could make it in the entertainment industry. He would imagine this other life in his first job, unloading deliveries for a clothes shop. Then, at 18, he started working for a Welsh children’s news programme, and in 2012, he moved into weather forecasting after the BBC sent him on a Met Office course.
“I’ve gone from a socially anxious person in school to becoming a journalist, then a weatherman, then a drumming weatherman,” the 42-year-old says.
In 2020, Evans uploaded a YouTube clip of himself drumming along to the BBC News theme. It went viral, attracting more than four million views. Drumming is something he has loved since the age of eight after he was given a second-hand kit.
“There was something about being part of something that was bigger, noisier and more confident than me,” he says. “The drums definitely saved me in a lot of ways because they became a joyous activity, a talking point for people and a generator of friends. It was a way to express myself when I didn’t have the social tools to be able to do so. It paved the way for me wanting to work in this world.”
That viral moment raised his profile and he began doing reports for The One Show. In 2021, he performed a 24-hour drumathon for Children in Need, raising £3.8m, before landing a presenting role on BBC Radio 2’s Early Breakfast Show. He now has a successful career, a loving husband with whom he has been for 17 years, and most importantly, feels comfortable in who he is.
“At the end of the day, you can’t be liked by everyone,” says Evans, who has spoken previously about receiving homophobic messages from viewers. “I try to be as nice as I can be and authentically me, then if someone doesn’t like me, there is nothing that I can do.”
Something that hasn’t changed from childhood is the importance of having a safe space. “I always want that feeling I got during childhood to exist in my home as an adult. I don’t get too attached to the bricks and mortar. Instead it’s where my husband, stuff and dog is,” he says, as he strokes his border terrier, Brillo Pad, who is sitting lazily on his lap.
Evans has renovated multiple homes in places he’s lived for work, including London, Leeds and Manchester. Since 2024, he’s combined that passion with his broadcasting experience as one of the presenters on the BBC’s Homes Under the Hammer.
“There are dozens of shows that are very similar in format, but this is the OG, and to be working on it is great. But like a lot of BBC shows, you have to look at how it spends money now, so the team is smaller than it’s been before. It’s often just myself, a researcher and a camera operator doing our filming, and they make great TV,” he says.
His latest venture – the podcast Love What You’ve Done with the Place – is a further extension of his fondness for the places we live. In each episode, he questions celebrities on their interior design choices, finding out what makes a home for them. “I’ve learned that everyone is the same. Whether it’s my home, my mother and father’s home, or H from Steps’s home, there is this universal feeling that it is your little place. It is full of things that build up the image of what you are like,” he says. “The house is almost peripheral – it’s stuff that you put inside it and the way that you decorate it.”
Evans’s home, just outside Cardiff, is also like a museum of his life. There’s the glitterball from a Cardiff nightclub he used to frequent that his husband gave him, a Welsh stick chair that belonged to his grandmother, and the pink moped, no longer working but on display in his kitchen. He is clearly a fan of making bold choices – on the podcast, he responds “stunning” to everything from Tom Allen’s description of his yellow sitting room to a fish tank in Nicky Chapman’s bathroom.
But there is one thing you won’t catch Evans approving of: “It breaks my heart when you see people removing original features. It is a crime.”
“On Homes Under the Hammer, I have pleaded with some people not to take out the original balustrade stairs, or the porch door. You go back and they’ve put in these grey glass things, and it removes all of the character.”
He adds: “But these places aren’t my home. I’m sure plenty of people would walk into my house and think, ‘Oh God, I would never have done that’.”
With such a varied career, nobody can guess Evans’s next move, including Evans himself – but it means he is always learning.
“When I first got my radio show, I was so terrified because it was such a big deal. I felt like a competition winner every day. I was so busy concentrating on the next live link that I wouldn’t take time to listen, but being on Homes Under the Hammer and the podcast has helped me. It is really all about sharing people’s stories.
“Now I feel like this is my show – I’m a Radio 2 DJ, and that’s amazing,” he says.
Love What You’ve Done with the Place is available on all major platforms