‘A lot of nappies’: PM admits he has six children in US interview

Boris Johnson has admitted for the first time he has six children, claiming in an interview on US television that he “changes a lot of nappies”.

The prime minister has previously tended to avoid questions about his notoriously complex family life. He has been divorced twice, and conceived a daughter during an extramarital relationship. But when an NBC interviewer put to him that he has six children, he replied: “Yes.”

Johnson has a one-year-old child, Wilfred, with his wife, Carrie Johnson. He said it was “fantastic,” to have children in No 10, claiming: “I change a lot of nappies.” The couple are now expecting another baby.

Johnson also has four adult children with his second wife, Marina Wheeler, and his daughter from his extramarital relationship. It has been reported Johnson could have conceived another child or children, but he has refused to discuss this.

Before the 2019 general election, Johnson was asked about this during a phone in on LBC radio, in which he was challenged by a caller about an article he wrote in 1995 in which he blamed single mothers for “producing a generation of ill-raised, ignorant, aggressive and illegitimate children”. After the exchange, the host, Nick Ferrari, pressed Johnson on how many children he had. “I think what people want to hear is what plans we have,” Johnson replied. “I love my children very much but they are not standing at this election and I’m not therefore going to comment.” Asked if he was “fully and wholly involved in all their lives”, Johnson refused to comment.

In his NBC interview yesterday, Johnson referred to the US president, Joe Biden, as a “breath of fresh air”. He also denied he had been snubbed by Biden at times during the Afghanistan crisis. “I don’t discuss calls with other leaders but to the best of my recollection we talked very frankly about the whole thing,” he said.

Asked if he agreed with Biden’s decision to stick to a date for withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan, he said: “America has been there for 20 years and it’s a respectable argument to say ‘enough is enough’,” adding: “Could we have done things differently? Perhaps we could.”