Tom Daley revealed the news in a heartfelt video on his YouTube page The 19-year-old admitted he has been dating the man since Spring Diver said he's 'never been happier' but insisted he 'still fancies girls' The Olympic medallist added that while his mother has been supportive, some of his other family members have 'mixed opinions' Kylie Minogue, Russell Brand and David Walliams led the celebrities tweeting their support for Tom By Guy Adams The phone call to Tom Daley's biographer came a few weeks before the start of the 2012 Olympics. Chas Newkey-Burden recalls how a reporter from a red-top Sunday newspaper was on the phone, asking him about internet rumours that the then 18-year-old diver was in a long-standing gay relationship with a fellow member of the British diving team. "They rang me several times, looking for information about Tom's sexuality," he told me yesterday. Supportive: Tom posted this image with his mother Debbie on Sunday night with the caption 'So lucky to have such a supportive mum! I love you! It surprised me that someone was interested in running that kind of piece so close to an Olympics, given the effect any scandal might have had on his chances of a medal. I didn't help. Sources close to Daley are understood to have also denied rumours of the gay relationship (which are, indeed, believed to have been unfounded). And no article ever found its way into print. In London a few weeks later, Daley won bronze. Touchingly, he dedicated it to his beloved father and mentor, Rob, an electrician who had died, after a long battle with brain cancer, at the end of 2011. Yet despite the outwardly happy ending, uncomfortable memories of the awkward episode have clearly lingered. Indeed, yesterday's frank and fearless YouTube video, in which Daley declared: "I'm dating a guy and I couldn't be happier," marks an effort to blow away a cloud of speculation that had begun to hover over his private life. Daley, born in an unpretentious suburb of Plymouth, took up diving at the age of seven, and quickly displayed a precocious talent. Aged ten, he won a national youth title. By 12, he was beating adult pros. Aged 14, he was selected for the Beijing Games, becoming the second youngest male athlete ever to represent Great Britain at Olympic level. The achievement brought instant celebrity. But fame can be a double-edged sword: For like any other child star, he was forced to negotiate the hurdles of adolescence under an unremitting public gaze. "In common with quite a lot of gay or bisexual men, Tom has spent his teenage years wrestling with his sexuality, trying to work out who he actually is," a family friend tells me. In his case, that was of course made particularly difficult by the fact that he's famous. With a hectic media schedule, partly attributable to lucrative sponsorship deals with the likes of Adidas and Nestle, Daley was soon forced to become adept at parrying questions about his romantic life. He talked of being "married to my trunks" or "too busy" for a "proper girlfriend." On other occasions, he allowed rudimentary details of relationships with girls to appear in print. A childhood flame from Plymouth was loosely hinted at. And a brief dalliance with US diver Mary Beth Dunnichay, to whom he gave a "proper kiss" during the Beijing Olympics, was detailed in his autobiography. Inevitably, perhaps, his sexuality became a matter of debate in cyberspace, where Daley has become a target for gossip and taunts from those apparently jealous of his fame and success. But reporters largely refrained from raising the question in interviews. Behind the scenes, Daley endured a string of personal setbacks. In 2009 it emerged that he was being mercilessly bullied at Eggbuckland Community College, his state school, where peers called him "diver boy" and "Speedo," and launched attacks that Daley's family claimed had "a physical dimension." "Though Tom never said as much, I do feel that the motivation for that bullying had a homophobic element to it," adds Newkey-Burden. Soon after, Daley moved to the fee-paying Plymouth College. And in 2011 it emerged that his father Rob had been diagnosed with the cancer which would later kill him. "Rob was a laid-back man," says a reporter who knows the family well. I don't know if Tom ever discussed his sexuality with Rob, but he'd have been very supportive. The death left Daley, who has two younger brothers, as the eldest male in his family, and the major breadwinner (his mother Debbie is a housewife). "As a diver, that's tricky, because it's not a sport where you ordinarily make a huge amount of money," adds the reporter. So after the 2012 Games, Tom began to actively pursue a TV career, and to do that these days, you need a celebrity profile. In August 2012 Daley began stepping out with another American diver, the Texan Kassidy Cook. He took her to the The Lion King musical in London's West End, and the Funky Buddha bar in Mayfair. Late last year he was pictured hand-in-hand with reality TV star Lauren Pope outside a paparazzi-friendly London nightclub. A public flirtation with singer Cheryl Cole, via Twitter, generated headlines. And there was no lack of female interest in his reality TV show, Splash!, which attracted six million viewers when it debuted this year. On Twitter, however, there were unpleasant incidents of homophobic abuse which last year led to two arrests. His decision to "come out" yesterday, with an at times very moving statement on YouTube, was overwhelmingly well received, with many praising his courage and honesty. The former Wales rugby star Gareth Thomas, who came out as gay in 2009, tweeted: "When the dust settles Tom will realise today is the start of an amazing life. Congratulations. I gather that Daley's management had been considering the move, at his request, for most of the year. Friends say it's been on the cards since June, roughly two months after he began a relationship with his current boyfriend during time off from revising for A-levels (he achieved three A grades). Daley's coach Andy Banks was one of several members of Daley's advisers consulted in advance of the move. "I responded in the same way many other people have done," he tells me. "I just said, "Congratulations.""