Lee Mack — things you didn't know about the TV star

Lee Mack is now back for Not Going Out season 14, his hugely successful BBC One comedy series.

He's also well known for being a team captain on Would I Lie To You? and as the presenter of the ITV1 quiz show The 1% Club.

Before becoming famous, Lee was a Bluecoat entertainer at Pontins. He first found fame as part of ITV's The Sketch Show. But what else is there to know about Lee? We find out...

Lee tried to be a professional jockey!

Lee decided at one point to try being a jockey and worked for a year with Donald "Ginger" McCain, the legendary trainer of Red Rum. He told The Big Issue: "After being thrown out of college, I got home, turned on the TV and horse racing was on.

"Five minutes later I rang up my local yard and asked to be a stable boy. That is how I led my life for the first 30 years. I have quite an obsessive personality. So I worked for a year with Ginger McCain, and the first horse I sat on was Red Rum. But I was scared of horses."

Lee turned down Death in Paradise

Lee was offered a guest spot in Death in Paradise but turned it down due to his fear of flying.

He briefly entertained the idea of trying to get to the Caribbean by boat, but ruled the option out as it would take so long. "I got asked to be in Death in Paradise, but because I don't fly, I thought, how am I going to get there? I looked into it, you can get a cargo ship from Portugal to nearby. It would have taken weeks and weeks and weeks and they only rent out a couple of rooms and the rest is for sailors,” he once told The One Show.

Lee grew up in a pub

Lee's parents were pub landlords. The star no longer drinks himself and once told The Big Issue that boozing isn't all it's cracked up to be. "I grew up in a pub, so it was a big part of our culture. When you start going to pubs, it is brilliant because you are surrounded by adults, you meet girls, you might join the pool club.

"But it is a big con. We are told that because we are pissed, we are having a great time. It is the other way around: we are having a great time, we just happen to be pissed. I would tell my younger self not to make the mistake of thinking alcohol is a great tool of liberation. Do not assume these great times you are having are because you are drunk."

Lee tried to get Noel Gallagher to star in the Oasis episode of Not Going Out

In the latest series of Not Going Out, Lee and Lucy desperately try to buy tickets for the Oasis reunion concert. Lee tells us: "When we were doing the episode, I wondered if there was any way we could get Noel or Liam Gallagher to turn up at the end for some reason. Rob Brydon [who Lee works with on BBC One panel show Would I Lie to You?] gave me Noel’s number, so I sent him a text asking if he'd be in the show but I never heard anything back!"

Lee met his wife Tara at university

Lee met his wife Tara while they were studying at London’s Brunel University in 1996 and they married in 2005. Lee studied drama.

Lee introduced Peter Kay's first ever TV stand up appearance (he thinks!)

On Rob Byrdon's YouTube show, Lee recalled that one of his first TV jobs was hosting a Channel 4 show called Gas, which aired in the late 1990s and introduced comedians from the comedy circuit. And one of those was a young Peter Kay. "I did these two series introducing new people to Channel 4 from the circuit, and they were very new at the time, so Peter Kay was on. I might be wrong, but certainly it was his first stand-up appearance, maybe his first appearance full stop."

Lee Mack isn't Lee’s real name

Like a lot of stars, Lee has a stage name. In fact he was born Lee Gordon McKillop. His co-star on Not Going Out, Sally Bretton, is also using a stage name! Her real name is Sally Davis.

Lee Mack's fact file

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We work hard to ensure that all information is correct. Facts that change over time, such as age, will be correct, to the best of our knowledge, at the time of the last article update.