The Strictly Come Dancing star has received huge support from his wife and classical singer Camilla Kerslake throughout his time on the BBC show
Former England rugby captain Chris Robshaw returns to the Strictly Come Dancing ballroom on Saturday night as he battles to keep his place in the competition.
After finishing in the bottom two in the second week, the 39-year-old managed to dodge the dreaded dance-off last weekend as the public vote helped send him straight through to week four, with entertainment reporter Ross King becoming the second celebrity to be sent home. Robshaw will be hoping for more of the same this weekend as he performs the samba to Ricky Martin’s ‘Maria’.
The former flanker has made no secret of how much he is enjoying the experience of the BBC show and has been supported throughout his journey so far not only by his professional partner Nadiya Bychkova, but also his wife Camilla Kerslake, herself a famous face in the world of classical music.
Kerslake – who married the ex-Harlequins star in 2018 before they welcomed two children together – has been her husband’s biggest supporter throughout the series so far, with her fierce devotion and protective instincts seeing her admit she wanted to confront one of the Strictly judges after they gave him a low score.
“I hope my big mouth won’t get Chris in the bottom two,” she told the Daily Mail. “I was furious last week, a protective wife, and I wanted to climb over the desk and give Craig what for. I’m so protective of my husband. I know how hard he’s working, how much this means to him, and I reacted.”
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The couple met for the first time at a charity event in 2011, where Kerslake was performing. It took just two minutes for the England rugby star to ask for her number, but as she later admitted, their romance almost didn’t happen due to her manager’s attempts to dissuade her from dating a celebrity.
In an interview with The Guardian, Camilla revealed that she had been asked out by an unnamed footballer just days before meeting Chris, but she turned him down after suspecting he was “spoiled”.
“I’d been asked out by a footballer the week before I met Chris,” she recalled. “The footballer had contacted his agent to get my number off my agent, and I thought: ‘What, are we children?’ I figured he was a spoiled sports person and didn’t follow it up.
“Chris, however, asked me out on the spot. I looked into his beautiful, honest face and thought, ‘Yes, I like the cut of your jib.’ He was a successful guy, but I loved that he wasn’t a slick Rick.
“He was open and kind and I have always been attracted to the type of man who would make your mum lunch if she was sick. The fact that he looked like a Greek god was a bonus.”
On her manager’s concerns, she added: “My manager was with me that night and said, ‘No! You absolutely cannot go out with someone in the public eye!’ My label had a tight grip on my image and they were very keen for me not to be in a relationship, let alone one with a high-profile sportsman.
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“Unfortunately for them, there was just something about Chris. I was well behaved in general, but this was the first time I thought, ‘No. This man is lovely. I am going to give him my number.'”.
“I really wasn’t looking to meet anyone at the time. Chris had been single for pretty much his whole life, but there was a gang of handsome, successful players he was friends with, and one by one they kept meeting women who would become their wives.
“Chris thought, ‘Right, this is what we are doing now!’. Meanwhile I was really enjoying being on my own, and feeling free. That didn’t last long. Within a few months I knew he was ‘the one’.”