It feels like we’ve been talking about it for, er, well about a year since the last one finished but tonight FINALLY sees the launch of Strictly. And one dancer is feeling pretty terrified.
Ruth Langsford says that the ‘nerves have started very badly’ and that she’s been sharing her terror on the Strictly What’sApp group.
We would LOVE access to the Strictly What’sApp group, don’t know about anyone else.
“I had a real jitter. I got up very early yesterday and did that thing of, ‘err, what day is it? Where am I supposed to be?’” she told The Sun.
“Then every negative thought I could possibly think about doing Strictly suddenly was there.
“I was thinking I haven’t trained enough, I’m too fat, I’m too old, I’m too busy, I can’t do it.
“I had to get up because I got myself in such a state.”
Ruth is one of the outside bets for this year’s show at 66/1 while fellow contestants like Alexandra Burke, Mollie King and Aston Merrygold are tipped to do well.
But Ruth says that she is doing it for the older contingent – and is hoping for a hot dance rather than a hot flush.
“I am fully in the menopause, there is no denying that,” she told The Express.
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“I think viewers of This Morning and Loose Women are predominantly women of my age and over, and I’ve had such a fantastic response from them, and they are all saying ‘we’re rooting for you Ruth, we’re right behind you’.
“And I really feel like I am kind of representing the more mature woman, possibly in the menopause.
“That’s why I said I’m looking forward to a hot dance rather than a hot flush. I feel I’m out there for the menopausal women of Britain.”
And while Strictly is now notorious for the ‘curse’ that it puts on people’s relationships, with even Louise Redknapp reported to have had marriage problems on the back of last year’s series, Ruth, 57, is actually HOPING to make Eamonn, also 57, envious of her sexy dancing with other men.
“I’m hoping to make him extremely jealous, that’s one of the main reasons I’m doing Strictly,” she says.
“He’s not a jealous man, so I intend to rub myself provocatively up against any dancer who is vaguely handsome, and I hope he is green with envy watching me.”
Ruth’s been open about the fact that she’s always wanted to do Strictly and so when she got offered a place on the show, her husband told her she had to do it.
“He said ‘Do it! Do it! It doesn’t matter what else you’re doing, just grab it’.
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“If I hadn’t, I’d have always wondered what I’d have been like on Strictly.”
Good luck Ruth. And good luck Eamonn – you might need it when it comes to those hot dances…