Tom Daley and Dustin Lance Black are the proud parents of a baby boy — one who is equally each of theirs.
The couple opened up in a recent interview with The Telegraph about their new lives as dads to son Robert “Robbie” Ray, who arrived June 27 via surrogate, and how neither knows which of them is his biological father.
“That’s going to continue forever and ever,” Daley, 24, said of their family members’ (on both sides) claims of baby Robbie having a supposed physical resemblance to them. “But one thing we’re very strongly leaning towards is that we don’t want to know. He’s ours.”
“I don’t think we’ll ever hide anything from him, in fact I know we won’t,” Oscar-winning screenwriter Black, 44, chimed in. “That’s not just our instincts, that’s listening to the advice from people born of surrogacy. They say, ‘The things that bothered me are the things I wasn’t told. The things I was told don’t bother me.’ ”
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The spouses — who tied the knot in May 2017 at Bovey Castle in Daley’s native England — decided to undergo their conception journey in the U.S., where Black is from, for one big reason: In the U.K., the surrogate is a baby’s legal guardian for up to two years while parental rights are being sorted out in court.
“Right now it’s like the Wild West in the U.K.,” Daley explains. “In the States, there is a legal framework — you are not allowed to do it if you need the money. The surrogate is better protected as well as the intended parents. It’s just safer for everyone.”
Now, they have an extremely close relationship with their surrogate, they tell the U.K. outlet. “She becomes such a massive part of your life for those nine months,” says the Olympic diver. “You’re only matched with people who have the same desire. Some don’t want to have long-term relationships [with the parents].”
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Continues Daley, “We talk to ours all the time. This is a very familial process.”
And baby Robbie’s moniker holds special significance: Robert was the first name of the athlete’s father, who died in 2011 after battling cancer. It is also Daley’s middle name.
“My dad taught me so many lessons and there’s something really special about passing them on to our little son,” he says. “The things that I used to find incredibly embarrassing about how he used to act have taught me not to care what anyone else thinks. I know that our family is built around infinite amounts of love.”
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