Steve Davis gained a reputation as ‘Mr Boring’ of snooker during his playing career but the six-time world champion has had a very different life away from the table
Throughout his hugely successful snooker career, Steve Davis was cheekily dubbed the “most boring player in the world”.
After breaking onto the professional scene in the late 1970s, the London-born star dominated the sport for years, making it to eight World Championship finals and claiming six world titles, while maintaining his position as world number one for seven straight seasons.
In sharp contrast to the more colourful personalities of snooker’s golden era, such as Jimmy White, Davis enjoyed tremendous success through his methodical approach, simply cracking on with matches and systematically breaking down rivals at the table.
His understated manner even resulted in him being sarcastically nicknamed ‘Interesting’ on the satirical puppet TV show Spitting Image, but it was a persona he started to embrace towards the end of his snooker career, and since hanging up his cue in 2016, he has gone on to live a life quite different to that of the character he was once made out to be.
Now a popular TV pundit covering major snooker tournaments across the globe, there is still far more to the 67-year-old than initially meets the eye, with a surprising new career emerging 30 years after he left fans gobsmacked with revelations of an affair with a 19-year-old. Here’s what you need to know.
Surprise new career
After hanging up his cue, Davis has traded the snooker table for the turntables, making a name for himself as a successful DJ and musician and performing at venues nationwide.
The six-time world snooker champion is also a progressive rock enthusiast who has collected more than 10,000 vinyl records. Shortly after his retirement from snooker, he formed an electro group called the Utopia Strong with musician Kavus Torabi and recorded two albums with them.
He has since performed techno sets at Glastonbury Festival, supported Blur at Wembley Stadium and dabbled in production work for various other musical projects. Most recently, he curated the line-up for the 2025 Simple Things Festival in Bristol, leaving festival-goers who were unaware of Davis’ new career path utterly gobsmacked.
Reacting to a promotional video for the festival featuring Davis on Instagram, one follower wrote: “Is this actually Steve Davis or an AI video? I hope it’s real because it’s pretty cool lol.”
Another replied: “The first thing I’ve seen and thought ‘that’s AI’ that has turned out to be mind-boggling factual,” while a third added: “I did not expect this at all – respect to Steve Davis.”
Meanwhile, one fan summed it all up by writing: “Incredible. This guy has so much talent it makes my head spin. And he’s funny and charismatic. Who’d have thought he was this guy 35 years ago? I love it!!”.
In an interview with the Mirror, Davis admitted his unexpected change of career was “ridiculous”, confessing: “I didn’t know my life would turn out like this. You haven’t got a clue. My life seems to have gone in reverse.
“I started off as a snooker player practising for eight hours a day in a dark room, and I ended up at Glastonbury DJing. You just don’t know what is going to happen.”
Reflecting on his appearance at the legendary festival, he added: “I come from another world. The snooker world is not that way so it passed me by. Music is my drug of choice.”
Of course, Davis’ DJ career isn’t his first venture into music, having started hosting a soul and rock programme on Brentwood’s Phoenix FM in 1996. He also famously collaborated with Chas and Dave on ‘Snooker Loopy’ as part of ‘The Matchroom Mob,’ which included Terry Griffiths, Tony Meo, Dennis Taylor, and Willie Thorne.
Split from wife and wild affair claims
Davis married former Concorde flight attendant Judy Greig in 1990, and the pair had two sons together, Greg and Jack.
However, after a 15-year marriage, they split in 2005, with the snooker legend revealing that his wife had “met someone else”.
“Perhaps I was giving the table a bit too much attention,” he later admitted to MailOnline. “I was difficult to live with. But so are all sports people – horrible. We’re all ‘Me, me, me!’ And so selfish!”.
The split came a decade on from a British tabloid newspaper paying £30,000 to 19-year-old dancer Cheree Palla to publish her allegations that she had a brief affair with Davis, who was 39 at the time.
Palla, now a beauty therapist, claimed they had sex seven times a night and later crowned Davis as the “king of the bedroom”.
“I wasn’t a politician, I was a snooker player – I was only an ambassador of that sport,” Davis later remarked. “So I didn’t lose much sleep over it in the end really. It’s not like I had people all over the place. I think my street cred went up quite a lot actually”.
Although his wife forgave him, they divorced 10 years later, with Davis then embarking on a long-term relationship with accounts worker Jeannie Nash, who was 16 years his junior.
Huge snooker fortune
As one of the most successful snooker players of all time, it’s hardly shocking to learn that Davis is also among the richest.
Throughout his career, he amassed over £5.6 million in winnings, while lucrative endorsements deals set up for him by his manager Barry Hearn led him to become the UK’s highest paid sportsperson in the latter half of the 1980s.
However, it’s been reported that Davis’ fortune has increased significantly since he ventured into commentary and other pursuits in his retirement, with his current net worth estimated to be an eye-watering £26.5 million.