Although I’d been asked lots of times, I’d always said no to being a contestant on Strictly. But my friends were desperate for me to do it when the question rolled round again in 2013.
With the kids in bed, I talked it through one evening with my husband Richard and decided that, yes, we could handle it. It had to be a joint decision.
I’ve thought back to that night many times and I’m so glad we decided together. Because my whole experience of the show often makes me think of that Dickens quote: ‘It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.’
Some of the show was pure joy and exhilaration. But some of it was seriously intense and, even for a strong marriage like we have, it gave our foundations a good old shake.
In the launch show where we met our Strictly partners, I looked absolutely terrified. It wasn’t that I was terrified to be paired with Brendan Cole – I liked Brendan.
TESTED: Some of the show was pure joy and exhilaration. But some of it was seriously intense and, even for a strong marriage like we have, it gave our foundations a good old shake. Pictured: Sophie with her husband Richard Jones in 2017
We’d got on when we’d met to learn the group dance for the launch and I secretly wanted to be paired with him as he was the only professional to be married and a dad, so I knew this would give us things to talk about other than footwork.
It was more that I found the whole thing of being paired a bit mortifying. I felt uncomfortable that there was a slight weirdness in forming a new ‘couple’ when you’re both two married strangers.
In the show, I found that kind of thing just didn’t sit too easily with me – even though Brendan was a complete gentleman throughout.
Why do they fetishise the ‘couples’ aspect so much? Dance partners, yes, but a couple has a different nod.
I had found this really innocent when I’d read it in the newspapers, but when it was me, with another man, and Richard watching on, I didn’t find it quite so innocent.
As soon as we were paired and the show stopped recording, Brendan went straight over to find Richard in the crowd to shake his hand. Brendan had done the show since the first one so he knew inside out how weird it was for the family outside of the programme.
PERFECT GENT: The physical closeness was something I struggled with throughout. Pictured: Sophie on the show with dance partner Brendan Cole in 2013
He had good advice for me. ‘If you want this to work well, involve your friends, involve your husband.’ I think it did make a difference.
Some of the show was incredible. I loved that first waltz. I have to say, of all the things I’ve done in my professional life, my grandparents loved Strictly the most.
I have to confess as well that from that beginning dance, for all my awkwardness about having to cling on to another man for the dances, I was hooked and addicted to the show and the ride.
I never actually cared about winning. But from the start I knew that if I was only going to do the show once, then I wanted to have a go at all the dances. Making it to the final just before Christmas meant I got them all.
So it feels a bit of an awkward juxtaposition to have had this exquisite experience on one hand – learning all these gorgeous routines and being put in fabulous sparkly frocks with amazing hair and make-up – to then have a downside. But there was.
Richard started to struggle with my involvement from the launch show onwards.
It was so hard for him that I can remember wondering if they’d ever had a contestant walk away from the show before they’d even danced their first dance.
The physical closeness was something I struggled with throughout, but, by the end, a lot of things I had thought were odd – like the ‘couples’ holding hands or gripping on to each other for the results show – I was used to and it seemed as if, by doing those things, I had crossed another Strictly hurdle.
In a lot of ways the show was good for me. I became a better performer on stage. I loved pushing myself and trying new things and seeing what I was capable of.
It also changed my relationship with my body. I realised I was stronger than I knew and my body lapped up the exercise. For a brief moment I had what I call a ‘dancer’ bod, and though I knew it was on loan, I loved it while it lasted.
But at home my head was distracted. I’d get in exhausted, and while listening to what had been going on with the kids, I could feel my thoughts getting foggy as I went over and over some step I was finding hard.
I still feel bad that I was so absent. Especially at Christmas time as the final approached. The number of people still in the show dwindled and the intensity ramped up.
I could see some of the other contestants’ marriages and relationships were under strain. There were three marriage break-ups in my year and two Strictly babies have been born from fellow contestants and their dance partners.
That is not meant to trivialise any of those incidents. I have no idea what was going on in the marriages that broke down, and hey, working together is sometimes how you meet people.
But the concentric circles of these real-life situations, changes and developments definitely started to change the atmosphere of the programme. I can’t think of any word other than ‘intense’.
By the final week, I was done. I can remember standing beside the dance floor with Abbey Clancy and we were both saying how ready we were to go back to our husbands and our normal lives.
All the while, Richard was feeling left out in
