Strictly 2022 star Ellie Simmonds OBE has shared the news that she’s been in hospital with a mystery health scare.
The former Paralympian swimmer shared the update with her 117k Instagram followers on Saturday (December 16), hours before the 2023 final.
Ellie posted a worrying photo of herself hooked up to an IV drip on her Instagram Stories.
Strictly 2022 star Ellie Simmonds shares news of hospital stay
She said: “Never would of thought [I’d] spend days in December and lead up to Christmas in hospital.”
Ellie added: “Huge thank you to all the nurses, doctors and staff at the Walsall Manor NHS hospital for looking after me.”
The retired swimmer, 29, didn’t make it clear why she was in hospital.
Ellie was the first celebrity to represent dwarfism when she competed on last year’s series of Strictly Come Dancing. She was partnered with pro dancer Nikita Kuzmin, who is dancing in tonight’s final with actor Layton Williams.
Nikita and Ellie were the sixth couple to be eliminated in 2022. They danced together again during the Strictly Live Tour earlier this year.
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Ellie’s rough few weeks
Ellie, who was adopted as a child, won two gold medals for Great Britain at the 2008 Beijing Paralympics. She won another two golds in London 2012 and one in Rio in 2016 before retiring from competitive swimming in 2021.
She has since worked as a pundit for Channel 4 and made a documentary in which she searched for her birth mother.
Just last month Ellie broke up with her childhood sweetheart Matt. A source told The Sun: “Ellie and Matt have sadly split but it was amicable on both sides and there remains a lot of love there.
“They preferred to keep their relationship out of the public eye and it was the same with the break up. But both are doing okay.”
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