Ruth Langsford loved being on Strictly Come Dancing with Anton Du Beke but there is one incident she would love to forget
Ruth Langsford has admitted there is one moment from her time on Strictly Come Dancing which still makes her cringe many years on. TV host Ruth appeared on the BBC show in 2017 alongside Anton Du Beke. And although she made a friend for life and learned to love the show after a rocky start, she is still haunted by one incident.
In her new book Feeling Fabulous, Ruth writes that she really wanted to be partnered with Anton, but over celebrated when she got the news on the first show of the series where the celebs are paired off. She explains: “They called out my name and there may have been a drum roll. I’m not sure I drew a single breath in that time, until they said I was partnered with . . . dramatic pause . . . ‘Anton Du Beke!’ My calm walk towards him suddenly turned into an ungainly run, like a cart-horse, and I launched myself at him.
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“Except I didn’t leap high enough so instead of hooking my legs around his waist, I ended up with them around his thighs, and he was hanging on to me for dear life. I think this took me more by surprise than it did him. Inside, I was thinking, ‘Ruth! What the hell are you doing?! Don’t jump! You never jump. Oh, dear God, you’ve jumped . . .’ It was too late. I had committed and then I had to pretend this was what I had planned to do.
“I can’t watch this back now because it makes me cringe. Of course, when Anton recounts the story, he adds all sorts of embellishments including a part where he staggers backwards as I cling to him. He sometimes tells it at his theatre shows and once, when I was in the audience, he got me up on stage to replay it. He makes me howl with laughter.”
Ruth also explains in the book how she had to overcome extreme nerves in rehearsals and a panic attack on the first show. Of her stage fright she writes: “”As time passed, my nerves got worse and worse, and I had a deep sense of dread in the pit of my stomach.”
Looking back she said her “brain seemed to detach from her body” as she went down the stairs to get on the dance floor at the BBC. She was due to perform a waltz to ‘This Nearly Was Mine’ from the musical South Pacific .
She adds: “I was aware of just how many people were in the studio. I live and breathe live television so that wasn’t a problem, but I had never performed in front of a big audience before and I swear I could see the whites of their eyes.
“I couldn’t move and I felt dizzy. I had no saliva in my mouth, so my smile was more of a grimace with my lips stuck to my teeth. My heart was beating so loudly I could hear it in my ears, and I was convinced the audience would be able to hear it, too.”
Thankfully just as she thought she might faint Anton Du Beke picked her up and saved the day.
She described the dance as “an out-of-body experience” and said that Anton carried her around the dancefloor “like a rag doll”. She said it was much later that she realised she’d had a panic attack.
* Feeling Fabulous: Be your best self, no matter what life throws at you by Ruth Langsford is out now, published by Hodder & Stoughton
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