Ruth Langsford was so paralysed by fear on Strictly her legs went numb during a dance and it took four staff to coax her down the show’s famous stairs.
The telly host also cried learning her steps in the lead-ups to the live shows, her dance partner Anton Du Beke has revealed.
Ballroom veteran Anton, 55 – who competed with Ruth, 61, in 2017 – said of her being crippled by the ‘Strictly fear’ “and it took four of us to coax her down the big staircase”.
“At one point I was doing a lift and she whispered in my ear, ‘I can’t feel my legs, Anton. Don’t put me down’.”
(Image: BBC)
He added about This Morning host Ruth’s teary sessions while learning dances: “Ruthie would call them Teary Tuesdays. Sometimes we had Weepy Wednesdays, too.”
It comes after Ruth has admitted she almost didn’t make it to the Strictly stage for her first dance out of “blind terror”.
Anton added another of his challenging celeb female partners was Nancy Dell’Olio.
The telly personality, 59, refused to get in a coffin for a Halloween-themed number unless he got in with her.
(Image: BBC/Guy Levy)
He sniped: “I said, ‘Get in the coffin, Nancy’, and she said ‘No, you get in it’.
“Then it went like this: ‘I can’t be in the coffin, Nancy. I’ll give you a bottle of champagne if you get in the coffin’.
“’We can get in the coffin together’. ‘That won’t work, Nancy’.
“‘It would make our relationship better’. “‘We don’t have a relationship, Nancy’.”
(Image: BBC/Guy Levy)
Anton will replace Bruno Tonioli as a Strictly judge from September after being with the BBC One show as a pro dancer since it started.
The dad-of-two – who has twins George and Henrietta, four, with wife Hannah Summers – stressed he admires women far more than men.
He admitted it stems from watching his Spanish mum Ascensión ‘Conchita’ Lema graft at two jobs while he and his siblings dodged his abusive alcoholic dad.
“It’s well-documented that my dad was an alcoholic, and mum was the rock of our family.
“She was the one who took two jobs, the one we went to if we needed anything. I never saw her take a sick day.
“I suppose we were – it’s an old-fashioned term now – latchkey kids. My mum had two jobs, so that work ethic came from her.
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“She worked in a care home and at the bus station canteen. My dad would be incapacitated, so I’d go to the canteen to meet her. We would have our dinner there.”
Anton added: “I find the whole thing about women having to battle their way through quite pathetic. Like when men don’t want to give women jobs because they will go off and have babies.
“Come on!… they are probably better than you anyway. I think women are just better at most things, really.”
Source: Celebrities - dailystar.co.uk
