One of Strictly Come Dancing’s most glamorous contestants shared a hair-raising moment that nearly ended in disaster – and one that would have been tinged with irony
A former Strictly Come Dancing star has cheekily admitted finding the thought of nearly dying on live TV “slightly amusing”. Sophie Ellis-Bextor, who lit up the show in 2013, revealed that one of her performances could have turned into a real-life murder on the dance floor, echoing the title of her hit single from 2001.
The singer – who danced with Brendan Cole and came fourth behind ex-Coronation Street actor Natalie Gumede, Good Morning Britain’s Susanna Reid, and Strictly winner Abbey Clancy – later improved to becoming a runner-up in the 2014 Christmas special, losing out to Team GB gymnast Louis Smith.
But, on a podcast, Sophie shared a hair-raising moment from her time on the hit BBC show, set to return this autumn.
“I began the show dance suspended above the Strictly dance floor in a disco ball. I was supposed to have a little clip, and I decided not to use it,” she recounted to Mel Giedroyc’s Where There’s A Will, There’s A Wake. “I was slightly amused at the idea that live on telly I might plummet to my death, falling out of a disco ball onto a dance floor.”
Sophie burst into laugher after making that admission, before adding: “Anyway, it didn’t happen. But I think something similar, I might as well just embrace it.”
Mel quizzed: “Did they [Strictly’s producers] not know that you haven’t put the clip on?”
Sophie, married to The Feeling’s bassist Richard Jones, responded: “Why would they know? I’m up there. I had it on when they took me up. I just undid it when I was up there because I thought…”
Mel probed further: “Is it because you didn’t want to have that fumble moment?”
Sophie retorted: “Yeah, because I had to get out quite quickly to start the routine. I just thought, I don’t want to be faffing about with a clip. So I just undid it and I felt all right. I was sitting a bit like that, but inside a spherical part of the edge.”
In the podcast, where celebs share their preferred ways of dying and their dream funerals, Sophie also confessed that her association with Murder On The Dancefloor can be “annoying” and she dreaded becoming the punchline of jokes once she dies.
She revealed: “So I have realised not long ago… I used to always say, ‘I cannot possibly die in a nightclub because my death would immediately become a joke’. Immediately they’ll be like, ‘murder on the dance floor, obviously’.”
“I don’t want you to be murdered, though, Sophie!” Mel exclaimed, prompting Sophie to clarify: “OK. I’m not going to be murdered. No, absolutely not. But then I realised not that long ago, it doesn’t matter how I die, that joke will be made.
“Because someone will say, ‘Did you hear how Sophie died? The other person will say, ‘Was it murder on the dance floor?’ I cannot escape that now. It’s going to be a joke so quick, like within five minutes. It’s so annoying.”
The singer was speaking just weeks ahead of the release of her eagerly anticipated new album Perimenopop on September 12. With tunes on the table, Sophie also shared one particular track she’d love to have played at her own funeral.
“Well, you see…” she started. “I’ve always planned to have Mickey [Toni Basil’s 1982 hit] because I loved it so much when I was a kid.”