EXCLUSIVE FERN BRITTON: My Strictly partner told me I had no balance and couldn't dance. Some days I was crying before I even got to rehearsals. The TV star tells her bombshell story By Fern Britton For The Daily Mail Published: 21:07, 25 October 2024 | Updated: 21:19, 25 October 2024 e-mail View comments My middle names are Gung and Ho – if you give me a challenge, I'll just do it – but when Strictly Come Dancing came my way in 2012, I was nervous.
My partner, a handsome Russian, was an incredible dancer but I knew he would shoot from the hip. Shortly after we were partnered live on air, I found him sitting on the steps where the band play. I asked him if he was OK with having me as a partner and he said: 'Well, I am used to someone with some dance ability, and younger.
' My confidence took a hit at that, but I laughed and told him I didn't feel 55, and that, when I had a drink in me, I was a sensational dancer. He did not laugh. When rehearsals began, he soon pointed out that I had no balance and couldn't dance, so I should just stand still while he danced around me.
Author and television presenter Fern Britton, 67, on BBC's Strictly Come Dancing in 2012 Strictly is a magnificent sausage machine. You go in one end as a fairly normal person and come out the other as a bedazzling, sequined goddess. It was the rehearsals that were challenging.
As the weeks went on, I found it increasingly hard to gather up my self-confidence and there were days I was crying before I even go.
