In a story that blends personal triumph, family heartache, and the glare of public attention, Mia Winward-Dunn, the 20-year-old daughter of Emmerdale actress Sammy Winward and former footballer David Dunn, has revealed she is expecting her first child. The news, announced on January 14, 2026, comes with a bittersweet twist: Mia has not yet told her famous parents about the pregnancy, as a two-year estrangement continues to cast a shadow over her family life. The rift, which began after Mia joined OnlyFans at age 18, has left her navigating one of life’s most significant milestones without the support of her mother and father.
According to Daily Mail, Mia made her pregnancy public while out in Manchester, her baby bump visible beneath a brown unitard. The decision to go public before telling her parents underscores the depth of the family divide. Mia said, “I haven’t reached out to them yet and they don’t really know how to contact me. I am emotionally vulnerable while I’m pregnant and I really don’t want a big, stressful situation.” Her words, reported by The Sun and echoed in Entertainment Daily, paint a picture of a young woman torn between hope for reconciliation and a desire to protect her own mental well-being during pregnancy.
At the heart of the estrangement is Mia’s brief but lucrative stint on the adult content platform OnlyFans. She joined the site at 18, a decision that, by her own account, led to a complete breakdown in communication with her parents. Mia told The Sun that her father, upon learning of her OnlyFans career, called her a “w***e” and slammed the phone down on her when she tried to reconnect. Her mother, meanwhile, reportedly severed contact in the summer of 2024, just months after the rift became public. Mia’s earnings from OnlyFans were substantial—at one point, she made up to £100,000 a month, allowing her to purchase a house in Mexico in 2025 before returning to the UK.
Despite the financial freedom and empowerment she says OnlyFans brought her, Mia’s reflections are tinged with regret over the family fallout. She told Entertainment Daily, “Don’t get me wrong, when I was younger I did have good parents. When I think about how I am, they made me who I was. But I made some decisions that they didn’t approve of.” Looking back, Mia admits she may not have fully understood her parents’ concerns at the time, acknowledging, “Maybe I didn’t really understand why they were feeling like that, why they were judging my decisions.”
Now living in the Lake District with the “multi-talented” father of her unborn child—a partner she has been with for a year but has chosen not to name—Mia has left her OnlyFans career behind. She says she quit the site “the minute” she discovered she was pregnant. Her current life, she describes, is “wholesome,” a far cry from the jet-setting, party-girl persona she once projected online. Yet, the emotional cost of her choices lingers. “Now that I have my own baby inside me, I just couldn’t imagine not speaking to my child,” she reflected to The Sun, hinting at a newfound empathy for her parents’ perspective.
While Mia has not reestablished contact with her mother or father, she remains in touch with one unnamed family member. The identity of this person remains a closely guarded secret, but their continued presence in her life offers a glimmer of familial connection. Mia’s longing for reconciliation is palpable. She expressed a wish to share special moments with her mother, such as shopping for baby clothes, saying, “Shopping for baby clothes with my mum would be a lovely thing to do, but we’ve got a lot to work on. There’s a lot to forgive and that process hasn’t even started yet.”
The family’s troubles are not new. Mia’s childhood was marked by her parents’ split and the demands of her mother’s acting career. She told Daily Mail that she was mostly raised by her grandmother, as her mother’s filming schedule for Emmerdale left little time for them to be together. “I often felt lonely, picked on and controlled—about what I wore, what I said in public and most of all unsupported,” Mia said, recalling her years as the daughter of a young soap star. At 16, she moved in with her father after feeling stifled at home, only for that relationship to later fracture as well.
The rift with her parents deepened after Mia joined OnlyFans, a decision she says was met with disbelief and anger. She has previously suggested that her mother’s reaction was hypocritical, noting that Sammy Winward herself posed for lads’ magazines during her soap heyday. “I just think how, how can you not be accepting? You were younger than me when you stripped off and now you’ve completely blocked me out of your life,” Mia said, as reported by Daily Mail.
Despite the pain, Mia holds out hope for the future. She insists she is willing to apologize for her part in the estrangement, but says her parents must do the same. “I want them to want to be in my life as well as my child’s,” she told Entertainment Daily. “There’s a lot to forgive and that process hasn’t even started yet.” She believes her mother would be “an amazing grandma” and an “amazing addition” to her child’s life, if only they can find a way forward.
Mia’s story is a complex one, shaped by the pressures of fame, generational divides, and the unique challenges of growing up in the public eye. Her journey from OnlyFans model to expectant mother, and her struggle to reconcile with her parents, is a reminder of the enduring power—and fragility—of family ties. As she prepares for motherhood, Mia seems determined to chart a new course, one that, with luck and forgiveness on all sides, might yet lead to healing.
