Dani Dyer says her father Danny ‘started crying’ after becoming a granddad to her newborn Santiago

Dani Dyer has revealed her father, Danny, ‘can’t stop crying’ after becoming a grandfather to her tiny tot, Santiago. 

Speaking on the Made By Mammas podcast, the former Love Islander, 24, confirmed the EastEnders actor, 43, didn’t expect to be so emotional as he said he ‘never felt anything like’ becoming a granddad. 

She said: ‘My dad didn’t realise [he would be so emotional about being a granddad]. He has been so emotional around Santiago, the other day he was really crying.

‘He went: “I love babies, but your baby. I have never felt anything like it. I didn’t think I’d feel like this”.   

‘He hasn’t experienced being a grandad yet, I made him a first time grandad. It has hit him more now.

‘He did see me pregnant and getting bigger but seeing me with the baby, it’s like, “this is real now”.’ 

According to Dani, she decided to keep her pregnancy to herself until the scan when she revealed the exciting news to her father.  

She added: ‘I think sometimes you talk about planning for a baby, but I am always quite secretive and keep things to myself.

‘It wasn’t that we weren’t planning, I didn’t want to tell my mum straight away but I did. I didn’t want to tell dad until the scan.’

Dani welcomed her first child in January alongside her partner Sammy Kimmence. 

She first shot to stardom on the reality show, Love Island, in 2018, which she won alongside her boyfriend at-the-time, Jack Fincham.  

Dani recently revealed that her father Danny was so furious when he learned she’d signed up for the show that he stopped talking to her for weeks. 

In a candid chat with the EastEnders star on their Sorted With The Dyers podcast, Dani revealed that her dad was initially far from happy about it.

Broaching the subject, Dani admitted: ‘I loved being a dental nurse but it wasn’t somewhere I wanted to be forever. Then Love Island happened.’

Danny said: ‘Everything was going all lovely and you were getting on with it and all of a sudden you sat me down.’

Explaining her decision, Dani went on: ‘I wanted something different, I never took risks and I thought this could be a good one.’

Danny then quipped: ‘You really did roll the dice baby didn’t you. It didn’t go down well at first.’

Things went frosty between the pair when rumours started to swirl that Dani was signing up for the show, before she’d even decided to do so. 

‘You hated me,’ Dani said, prompting her dad to clarify: ‘I didn’t hate you, I never hated you ever.’

Recalling his annoyance, Dani said: ‘He didn’t like me. We didn’t really talk. It was very awkward. Oh my god, I’d walk into the room and it would be so awkward.’

He conceded: ‘No we didn’t talk. I think I was upset because we were very close and you’d spoke about it to everyone, I was the last fu**er.’

‘Because you kept saying to me, it sort of came out a couple of months before that I was supposed to be going on Love Island and in my brain I wasn’t,’ explained Dani.

‘Then you said to me “am I going to go on Love Island?” and I was like, “no it’s all a rumour”. But that was a rumour then and then I sat there and thought maybe I should consider it.’

Even as screen star Danny waved his eldest offspring off on her flight to Spain, he remained peeved, as he said: ‘I set you off, I put your suitcase in the boot all fu**ing angry and I said, “go on just f***ing go and do what you got to do.”‘

However, all of his fears soon became pride, as he watched his daughter become one of the show’s most popular contestants. 

He admitted: ‘I was petrified but it turned out well. I just became a viewer like everyone else and I didn’t have any contact with you and I just watched this very authentic vulnerable thing unfold.

‘If you could write a script for doing eight weeks on Love Island that would be the script you would write, because you were loyal in there and you turned your life “round.”‘

While Dani would win the show with then-boyfriend Jack, they would go on to break up in April 2019. Jack welcomed his daughter Blossom just nine months later.