Debbie McGee feels like she has been reborn after ‘Strictly Come Dancing’.
The 59-year-old star was thrilled she made it all the way to the final on the BBC latin and ballroom show and says it has had a huge impact on her life.
She said: "People always thought I couldn’t do anything and I was just blonde. I do have my blonde moments … but it was really nice for me to show everybody that there’s a bit more to me than that … It does feel like that [being reborn] … When I met Paul, I had had a really good career in the business but I just had seen lots of showbiz marriages split up and go awry. I always put him first. I have no regrets over that. I had over 30 amazing years with Paul and in those days, I thought, if I go and push my career, we won’t see each other. If it [work] took me away from him too long, I thought, ‘Oh I won’t do that again,’ because I want to be with him. Life’s too short. I don’t want to sit in a hotel room on my own and him be in another hotel room somewhere else. I wanted to be with him."
And Debbie thinks her late husband Paul Daniels would have loved her stint on the show and would be "looking down" on her with pride.
She added: "He would have absolutely loved it because if I did well, he would always be happy for me. He would be looking down on me … When Paul did it, I got more nervous for him then I did getting nervous for me doing the show because it really wasn’t his thing."
Debbie also had a close bond with her professional dance partner Giovanni Pernice but has insisted there was nothing romantic going on.
Speaking on ITV’s Loose Women, she shared: "From day one, I felt comfortable with him. There wasn’t anything that made me feel shy. One of those lifts, he had to put his hands between my legs, that’s as close as you can get to a man! … I can’t explain why, we were just really comfortable in each other’s company. I never felt like anything was wrong so we just had a lovely time."
Debbie McGee’s Strictly Come Dancing rebirth
