The Piano star Jamie Cullum’s height, celebrity model wife and links to famous author

Jazz star Jamie Cullum is one of the guest mentors on the new series of Channel 4’s The Piano

Jamie Cullum has been in the spotlight for decades.

The jazz star was just 20 when he reportedly produced his first album, Heard It All Before, in 1999 with just £480 and only 500 copies made.

Since then he’s enjoyed huge success as a singer and musician, releasing more albums, performing all over the world and amassing awards. The 46-year-old, who was born in Essex and grew up in Wiltshire, is also renowned for fronting The Jazz Show With Jamie Cullum on BBC Radio 2.

Fans will be able to catch Jamie on the new series of Channel 4’s The Piano, which returns on Sunday, July 12 for its fourth run. Hosted by Claudia Winkleman and Mika, the programmke searches for the UK’s best amateur piano players and Jamie will be one of the guest mentors along with Jools Holland and Hiromi.

Ahead of the show, we take a look at Jamie’s life away from the cameras, including his model wife, famous reation and his real height.

Supermodel wife and children

Jamie has been married to supermodel Sophie Dahl since 2010 and they have two daughters.

Sophie started her career as a teenage fashion model and was famously discovered by British Vogue. She was renowned for her curves and was sought after by the top designers.

She’s gone on to have a successful career as an author, journalist and TV presenter.

Speaking to Red in 2020, Jamie opened up about meeting his wife.

He said: “We just really hit it off. I thought, ‘Man, that is a cool woman,’ but I didn’t really entertain anything else. We were both in relationships and she wasn’t living in the UK, so we were just friends at first.

“Then, a couple of years later, she moved back here and that’s when our friendship became something else.

“We had a very immediate connection. While we both worked in a public way, our lives were purposefully quite private.”

Links to famous author

Sophie is the granddaughter of the late great author Roald Dahl who is renowned for children’s classics like Matilda, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Fantastic Mr Fox and Matilda. Sophie was said to be the inspiration behind his work, The BFG.

He was born in Cardiff to Norwegian parents and served in the Royal Air Force. His first children’s book was The Gremlins, published in 1943, about mischievous little creatures that were part of Royal Air Force folklore

As well as his children’s books, he also had a successful parallel career as the writer of macabre adult short stories, which often blended humour and innocence with surprising plot twists.

Roald died in 1990, long before his granddaughter met and married Jamie.

Height

Seven years ago, Jamie released the album Taller, which some people saw as rather ironic as Jamie, himself, has described himself as “short”.

When chatting to The Mirror at the time, the star, who stands at around 5ft 4in, spoke about being “short” and how people seemed to notice it more after he tied the knot with the 6ft tall Sophie.

He said: “It is something I’ve been gently teased about my whole life, particularly when I married a taller woman.

“But I’ve taken something that could be my vulnerable spot and used it to say something.”

The Piano returns to Channel 4 on Sunday, July 12 at 9pm