00s popstar’s marriage ‘paid a heavy price’ during her time on Strictly

Sophie Ellis Bextor’s husband started having therapy after concerns surrounding the Strictly Come Dancing curse started ‘weighing him down’.

The singer, 45, appeared on the BBC dancing series in 2013, where she was paired with Brendan Cole.

The pair reached fourth place, with the winners of that season being Abbey Clancy and Aljaž Škorjanec.

But during her time on the programme, Sophie’s marriage to husband, the Feelings bassist Richard Jones was under strain.

In her 2021 memoir Spinning Plates, Sophie wrote they each paid ‘quite a heavy price’.

‘Richard started to struggle with my involvement from the launch show onwards,’ she wrote.

‘It was so hard for him that I can remember wondering if they’d ever had a contestant walk away from the show before they’d even danced their first dance.

‘The physical closeness was something I struggled with throughout, but, by the end, a lot of things I had thought were odd – like the “couples” holding hands or gripping on to each other for the results show – I was used to and it seemed as if, by doing those things, I had crossed another Strictly hurdle.’

Sophie recalled how Richard became ‘unusually insistent’ on knowing where she was ‘all the time’ and would ‘spiral’ if she didn’t reply to a text straight away.

‘He just felt as if I might slip into a new life that left our family behind,’ she revealed.

Richard then started counselling sessions while Sophie competed on Strictly.

In recent weeks extracts from her memoir have been resurfacing in the wake of the scandal currently involving Strictly, which Sophie addressing it again.

‘This week there’s been a resurfacing of a chapter in my autobiography Spinning Plates where I talk about my time in Strictly. Richard put it so well in his post on the subject, I wanted to share it. He wrote the post 3 years ago, but the words still ring true. X’ she posted on Instagram on Wednesday.

In the original post, Richard shared a photo of Sophie and Brendan dancing on the show and wrote: ‘This was a great night – I’ve shown clips of Sophie and Brendan’s Charleston to friends many times over the years. One of the all time great Strictly dances in my opinion and it was only week 2! And my goodness how incredible does she look!

‘I’ve had a lot of messages regarding the press stories about how strictly affected our marriage when Sophie was a contestant back in 2013. It’s all good – it was 8 years ago and we’ve had 2 more kids since then! I encouraged Sophie to be open about it in her book because it’s in the past now and we feel that there’s a lot that could be made easier for couples if the show gave them more support. During the show I was often sat in the bar with the partners of other contestants and most were going through similar difficulties to me.

‘It’s a very surreal experience and such a big show that I couldn’t get away from it all – I was out trying to promote The Feelings 4th album ‘boy cried wolf’ at the time and all anyone wanted to talk to me about was if I was worried my wife would leave me. It begins to wear you down.’

He continued: ‘The therapy I had really did help a lot though and took the pressure off so Sophie could focus on the show and enjoy it – which she really did. I hope that comes across too.

‘I really do encourage anyone who’s struggling with something, anything at all that becomes overwhelming to ask for help. Even speaking to a friend can make a big difference.

Richard then said Strictly was ‘a very happy memory for both of us now’ and how it ultimately ‘brought us a lot closer together’.

Sophie and Richard, who married in 2005, share five sons.

She previously also shared that ‘even for a strong marriage like we have, it gave our foundations a good old shake’, especially after there were three marriage break-ups in her year and two babies born from fellow contestants and their dance partners.

Strictly Come Dancing returns to BBC later this year.

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