Singer and songwriter Sophie Ellis-Bextor competed in the 11th series of Strictly Come Dancing in late 2013.
Brendan Cole was her dance partner. Together, they made it into the final four, but not without putting a strain on Sophie’s marital life with husband Richard Jones.
In her 2021 biography, Spinning Plates, she even went so far as to compare the atmosphere created by the show to “a cult”.
Her criticism of the show resurfaced amid reports concerning Graziano Di Prima and Zara McDermott. Yikes. Here’s what we know.
Strictly gave Sophie Ellis-Bextor’s marriage ‘a good old shake’
Read My Lips, Sophie Ellis-Bextor’s debut album, came out in 2001. It went double platinum, and three of its four singles, including Murder on the Dancefloor, reached the top three in the UK charts.
12 years later, Sophie – on Saturday Kitchen Live this weekend (June 14) – competed on Strictly Come Dancing. She and her professional dance partner Brendan Cole placed fourth overall. Hard work for the two of them, sure. But for her and her husband Richard, it may have been harder still.
“Some of the show was pure joy and exhilaration,” Sophie wrote in her 2021 memoir Spinning Plates. “But some of it was seriously intense and, even for a strong marriage like we have, it gave our foundations a good old shake.”
Richard struggled from the very beginning, Sophie’s worries came later
“Richard started to struggle with my involvement from the launch show onwards,” Sophie wrote in her memoir, which shares a name with her podcast, launched later. “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.”
From the start, Sophie wrote that she found the physical closeness difficult. And it combined with other things, such as the labelling of each dance pair as a “couple”.
These couples, which often consisted of individuals who were married to other people, would hold each other’s hands or grip on to each other while they awaited the results of each episode.
When she finally got used to it, it felt as if she had “crossed another Strictly hurdle”. But doing so increased the distance Richard perceived as growing between them.
“We would argue when I was home about how distracted I was,” she wrote. “And about whether I’d get through to the next week. He just felt as if I might slip into a new life that left our family behind. I had no such desire.”
But she was too exhausted at the end of each day to give him the reassurance he needed.
By the end of her time on Strictly, she wrote, he was “just waiting for [the show] to end”, and their arguing became incessant. “If I didn’t reply to a text, he’d spiral… he’d message me all day when I was rehearsing, extra keen to know my schedule.”
Brendan Cole said he was “heartbroken” when he first read of Sophie’s experiences on the show. He left the show in 2017. When he came back as a viewer, he felt like a “spare so-and-so at a wedding” and “hated” the experience.
Like ‘a cult’
Aside from the toll it evidently took on her life outside the show, and her husband Richard’s cortisol levels, Sophie Ellis-Bextor also wrote about the general weirdness she encountered, behind the scenes.
She claimed she was also asked probing questions that started to seem a little off. Examples included ‘Is this the best thing you’ve ever done?’, ‘How incredible has your dance partner been?’, ‘What will you do to fill the hole after Strictly?’, according to her book.
All of which, when put together, led her to a realisation: “I had the epiphany that, oh my God it’s like a cult! Trigger words and the constant repetition of how much it must mean to you.”
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Richard Jones had therapy to help him get through it, and it helped
Last year, a slew of reports emerged about the atmosphere backstage on Strictly Come Dancing.
Fans and friends started reaching out to Sophie and Richard amid news stories about how the show had affected their marriage, and Richard posted a lengthy update to his Instagram followers clarifying his position on the whole thing.
In the post – see above – he explained that he encouraged Sophie to write openly about their experiences during series 11 of Strictly. He did so, he wrote, because “there’s a lot that could be made easier for couples”.
Because of how big the show is, he couldn’t escape it. People kept asking him if he was worried his wife would leave him. It wore him down. Therapy helped. And in the process, it helped take the pressure off Sophie, so she could focus on the show “and enjoy it”.
“Strictly is a very happy memory for both of us now,” he concluded. “It really is very attractive to see your wife looking so beautiful on the dance floor and remember – she went home with me at the end of the night!
“Ultimately it actually brought us a lot closer together,” he wrote. “No regrets!”
Saturday Kitchen Live airs Saturdays at 9am on BBC One.
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