All Balls and Glitter (36 page)

I was being blunt, but I wanted to know if the relationship was worth pursuing.

He answered, ‘I’m into muscles …’

So I thought that was quite obviously the end of that.

DHG left, and then, a week later, he started texting me again, saying he was coming round. I told him, ‘Don’t,’ and expected to hear nothing more from him.

The following morning, at 3 a.m., I received a text, which said: ‘I’m outside.’

The next thing I know, someone is singing a love song, very loudly, outside my house. I went downstairs and opened the door to hiss ‘Fuck off!’ at him. He was ready for me. He slammed the door wide open, threw me against the wall and started snogging and undressing me at the same time. Then he dragged me upstairs.

Despite his newfound passion, we didn’t actually get back together after that. I’d realized that he wasn’t the guy for me.

After DHG came Walshy, whom I met on Jake, a website for professional gay men. He was twenty-nine, and we had a lot of fun together. We went clubbing in Ibiza and stayed together, off and on, for about three months. He was witty, charming, honest, dependable and everything I wanted. In one of those cruel twists of fate, though, it somehow wasn’t working for me. I had to be honest and tell him. I would never lead someone on if I thought it wasn’t going to last; I’d rather split sooner than later.

Not long after Walshy and I broke up, I met Doctor D, whom I thought was perfect. He was gorgeous and he was a psychiatrist – now, I could do with one of those. At thirty-five, he was the
right age, too. We shared similar tastes in furniture, decor and so on, and we were both at a place in our lives where we were sorted, but looking for love. It was all rather promising.

Doctor D lived in Bristol, so it took us ages to arrange a meeting. Three months after the first contact by email, we finally went for a beer. He was a laugh a minute, the funniest person I have ever been out with. However, distance meant we couldn’t see each other much. A month later, I went to Bristol and we had a lovely meal together.

Sadly, it turned out that we weren’t compatible after all. He eventually dumped me because – wait for it – he said the relationship was going too fast, too soon, and it was all too much for him. He wanted to slow things down. I’d thought that seeing each other once a month was sluggish enough. The whole affair lasted about four months, yet it could have been over and done with in less than a week, given the number of dates we actually had.

My next assignation was a rather special one. I met Grant through the same Internet site one Tuesday and our relationship developed at a breakneck pace in comparison. We arranged to meet the very next day, 21 November 2007, after my Wednesday filming for
It Takes Two
at The Hospital – a private members’ club in Covent Garden, not A & E!

The club has a TV studio downstairs, from where Claudia’s show is broadcast. Upstairs, there is a lovely restaurant, which serves delicious sausage and mash. After the tie-in show finishes, at about 7 p.m., all the
Strictly
gang involved that day often have a drink and some food together. It’s a lovely way to spend a weekday evening, eating sausage and mash with people like Penny Lancaster-Stewart and Rod Stewart.

On this particular Wednesday, I’d finished filming my contribution to the programme (during which – as she does every week of the run – Claudia had interviewed me about how the contestants were getting on at rehearsals and I had commented on
their training footage), and I was sitting on a corner seat in The Hospital when Grant walked in. I thought, ‘He’s gorgeous,’ and then, ‘He’ll take one look at me and run.’ He was the spitting image of Tom Cruise.

Grant sat next to me and we sheepishly murmured, ‘Hello.’ Then we got chatting over a couple of mojitos.

It was all going so smoothly and naturally that I said, ‘Do you want to go out for some dinner? I know this restaurant called Gilgamesh in Camden, which decor-wise has an ugly opulence, but it’s completely over the top and I love the food. Do you fancy that?’

To my surprise, he said he did and we went out for a meal.

There was an obvious mutual attraction, which grew throughout the evening. When it was time to say our goodbyes, we arranged another date. We haven’t left each other alone since. I am totally in love with Grant.

He’s a pharmacist at a Harley Street clinic, so it’s quite appropriate that we met at The Hospital. Grant works with cancer patients, helping to save lives on a daily basis, while I entertain. It does rather bring home the superficial nature of my career, I must admit.

In the blink of an eye, or so it seemed, the finale of season five came around and it was time to crown another king or queen of the ballroom. Alesha Dixon was a delightful winner. She came to us at rock bottom, following her very public marriage breakdown when her husband MC Harvey left her for singer Javine. She admitted she’d been suicidal. Alesha is the most wonderful character, the most beautiful person backstage and, on stage, she’s a dream. To think that someone like her can be treated so badly in their private life is awful.

On
Strictly
, she was a real inspiration, to millions. Alesha’s survival offered hope to those in similar situations. She extricated herself from her dark days and subsequently triumphed. I think it’s positive that people know about such hardship because it
encourages them to pull themselves out of their own dreadful scenarios. I don’t mean just by attending ballroom lessons; there’s often more to it than that. But, without being facile, they are at least a start, because you can meet new people and begin to feel good about yourself again. I don’t think we should ever underestimate the power of doing something for ourselves.

I’m often asked whom I judge to be the best and worst contestants in
Strictly
history. Alesha Dixon was a stunning dancer, and the best female all-rounder we’ve had to date, while the undulating hips of Mark Ramprakash seal his place at the top of my personal leader board.

At the bottom of the scale, Christopher Parker’s paso doble from season one will stay in my memory for many more bad reasons than good. Yet it was not Chris but Quentin Willson whom I christened Britain’s worst dancer, in series two, and I still stand by that.

On
Strictly
, I have to be honest and critical. Not just with the contestants, but also with myself. That has always been how I’ve got through life: if I lied to myself, it would reflect in my work. The critiques you see me deliver on
Strictly
come straight from the heart.

If they didn’t, I’d simply be playing a TV character – and then I’m no better than a pantomime villain. And I hate panto.

Until I’m offered one, that is.

A
t the beginning of 2008,
Strictly Come Dancing
embarked on a UK tour, playing forty dates in seven cities. Kate Thornton, who was fabulous, presented each show. As Bruno was working on the US version of
Dance X
(renamed
Dance Wars
in America), it was judged by just three of us: Len, Arlene and myself.

The timing was tricky given my burgeoning relationship with Grant. For in addition to the hectic UK tour, I was booked on a flight to New Zealand, just two days after the last gig, to film my second series of
Dancing with the Stars
. I wasn’t due back until May
.
It’s hard to get to know someone when you’re not even in the same country, so I had serious questions about how we could make it work. I feel sorry for anyone I meet because there’s not much I can do about the nature of my job and the amount of travelling it entails. I’m always open and honest about the situation with anyone I’m romancing; I have to explain to them that my job is my priority, because I love it, and I won’t give it up for anybody. It’s what I do and what I adore doing.

Grant, thankfully, understood that, and we agreed to give it a go. We called each other every day, wherever we were.

I wasn’t exactly sure how the live tour format of
Strictly
would work, but it was a real smash. It was pure entertainment and each
audience got to vote, which meant that we had a different winner every night.

It was weird judging the same routines time after time. We had to look at them with fresh eyes, otherwise all the feedback would be the same and our responses would grow stale. The dancers improved as the tour went on, but there remained room for error. Occasionally, some of them would forget a bit of the choreography or perform the wrong step, which was quite lucky for us judges because it gave us something new to comment on.

Chris Parker and Matt Di Angelo had a running dare going, where they’d challenge each other to add strange moves into their choreography. Chris would perform an extra hip thrust in his paso doble, and I’d say, ‘I believe there was a superfluous thrust in that routine.’

The contestants conspired on these things backstage to see if we were watching. Of course we were: we had eagle eyes out there. They were doing the same dance every night, so a different move stood out like a sore thumb. On the TV show it’s much more difficult to appreciate such nuances because you have only ninety seconds to see what’s going on.

Without the judges, the whole show would be simply a presentation piece. It’s the competitive nature of the format that people love the most. And, boy, are they competitive! The tour had a slightly different atmosphere, however, because some contestants – namely Chris Parker – took part even though they knew they were never going to win.

Chris is a star, because he just doesn’t care what we think about him. I would love him to improve, but he really hasn’t. As much as I get upset with the situation, because I don’t believe his interpretations are really dance, he is a good sport. His notorious paso was chosen as his Latin dance for the tour because he was so hilariously bad at it on TV. At some of the gigs, when he got a good reaction, he did a lap of honour with his cape flowing behind him. He was the highlight of the evening.

Len gave him an extraordinarily generous ten in Manchester, which the crowd loved. The audience like to see our reactions to the less talented celebrities like Chris because they wonder what the hell we can say about something as bad as that, without being horrifically rude or personal. Len really felt for him, because Chris put his heart and soul into it and really had a go, so Len marked him up for entertainment value. My argument, of course, is that it is still a ballroom competition and we are meant to mark contestants on their ability to dance.

Chris did well on both the programme and the tour because people empathize with him and can see themselves in him. They also love people like James Martin because, as much as his cooking is fantastic, his Latin sucks. Yet his ballroom is magnificent. It just goes to show that you can’t always be good at everything.

James, I’m quite sure, was not fond of the tour at the start because of the judges’ negative reaction to his Latin number. If you imagine that you have to dance the same routine every night, and you already know what the reaction is likely to be, when you consistently receive just a five or six in the scores every time, it is a difficult prospect.

But James is no fool. He played the game and entertained the crowd, wiggling his bottom to get them on his side, and at the end of his cha-cha-cha, he made no bones about the fact that he finds that particular dance style challenging. He has a laugh with the audience and they adore him. James is a savvy guy and he realizes that any situation can be turned around to your advantage, so he transformed his approach. He has a charming personality and is a great communicator, which is why he’s on telly and is so successful.

Tours always bring out mischief in performers. In the midst of the run, some of the lads displayed their childish side – with good old Len joining in too. The set-up backstage was that all the male dancers and celebs were put into a single dressing room, while Len and I got one to ourselves. The judges are
never off set during the evening, so it seemed very unfair on everyone else. The boys needed to be together because it made it easier for the wardrobe stylists, but they were always jealous of our opulent dressing rooms. They would have no sofas, no chairs, and there would be ten of them sharing one space; we always got these really posh rooms with TVs, sofas and tables, as did Arlene and Kate Thornton. At one venue, we had a marvellous room with lovely furniture … and the next night the furniture was gone. The boys had moved it.

Len decided to take revenge, so he went and hid all their dance shoes. He didn’t give them up until the last minute, just as they were about to go on. After that, war was declared. It lasted for weeks, with everyone trying to get one up on each other, hiding one another’s stuff backstage. It was ridiculous, but very funny.

There was a great deal of partying with the team after each gig. One night in Manchester, I got horribly drunk. I’d been out for a boozy lunch with Len and then met the others for dinner – and more wine. On the way back to the hotel, I was shouting marks out of ten out the cab window at everyone I saw, so I probably insulted half of Manchester.

Then I fell over on top of Stuart, the warm-up man, and we ended up rolling around in the gutter outside the hotel. Not only that, but I went in and bought another bottle of rosé, which the others hid from me after the first glass to prevent me from drinking it. I was on a mission that night.

The next morning, everyone was exclaiming, ‘What were you
like
last night?’

Oh, it was heinous. I had the hangover from hell and felt awful.

Chris Parker has the management take away the contents of the minibars in his room in every hotel, because he knows he’ll go through them. By the time you’ve eaten the chocolate, nuts and crisps and had a few drinks, you’ve spent your entire wage.

Chris is a really sweet boy and he does love to party. A couple
of years after he was in
Strictly
, he kept being photographed falling out of nightclubs and into gutters looking tragic, but I didn’t see any of that on the tour. He’s a lot more controlled now.