The pop star revealed how being in the showbiz wilderness dented her confidence, to the point where she almost took drastic measures to leave Strictly Come Dancing
Louise Redknapp has opened up about her struggles behind-the-scenes during her stint on Strictly Come Dancing, revealing she even tried to get her agent to pull her from the show.
The former pop star admitted her time away from the spotlight and motherhood impacted her confidence when she joined the hit BBC dance competition in 2016.
She even confessed that coming back into the entertainment industry left her feeling out of place amongst younger contestants in their glitzy outfits, despite once being crowned one of the sexiest women of the 1990s.
She shared on the Spooning with Mark Wogan podcast: “I realised having the kids and being away from the industry really had taken away my jazz hands and disappeared. I was like ‘where are they?'”
Louise reflected on losing her innate confidence and fearlessness over the years, saying: “I think [I had] muscle memory for dance, but not muscle memory for being in the limelight. I think that part had gone. The fear had come in and I think when I was younger, I was completely fearless. I gave everything a go.”
She went on to admit that seeing other female contestants confidently donning their dresses made her feel insecure.
“That element of confidence and fearlessness – that had gone. Walking down that opening show and seeing, like, some of the other females in the show and they had their little dresses on and they were so confident.”
In addition, Louise disclosed that her self-confidence took such a blow that she asked her agent to feign a terrible injury to avoid participating in Strictly’s first live show.
“I was looking at the other girls and they were shaking their bums and I literally came off the first show, rung my agent and went ‘You’ve got to get me out of here. This week you can pretend I’ve broken an ankle’,” she recalled.
“Week one comes, I’m at the top of the stairs, all the other girls have got a sparkly little outfit on, little knickers, high heels. I have got white jazz shoes and a sailors outfit in red. I was thinking ‘I am definitely not the sexiest woman of the decade anymore in this’.”
Despite the nerves, Louise waltzed her way to a commendable second-place finish behind BBC Sport presenter Ore Oduba. But less than a year later, her marriage to ex-footballer Jamie crumbled. The duo, who shared two children, split up in 2017 after nearly two decades together.
Talking about the public scrutiny which followed her divorce, Louise revealed the onslaught of criticism made coping an even greater challenge. She confided that without her sons Charley and Beau, the struggle might have been insurmountable.
“I think for me, the lowest, pretty much a person could get to, just horrendous,” she said. “I could never see a way out from how bad and low I felt at the time. If I didn’t have my kids, I think I would’ve just given up, like I really do. I think I just knew that my kids were my everything and they needed me.”
Meanwhile, Louise’s love life has turned a new page as she is currently linked with businessman Drew Michael, with the romance sparking up towards the end of 2023.
