Deborah Meaden: “Strictly has left me in constant pain”
Five years after starring in the dance contest, the Dragons’ Den entrepreneur has been left with her own lasting memory of the show – just not one she’d anticipated
She’s the last person you’d S expect to see sporting sequins and a fake tan, but in 2013, businesswoman Deborah Meaden swapped the Dragons’ Den boardroom for the Strictly ballroom – and with the help of professional dancer partner Robin Windsor, she lasted a month on the series. While she has plenty of happy memories of her time dancing, 59-year-old Deborah has sadly been left with crippling foot injuries.
She tells Closer, “I still have permanent pain in the balls of my feet, which is a constant reminder that I did the show. It started after I spent ten hours a day waltzing and I put too much pressure on them.
“Everybody is injured in some way [on the show], but now I need to have steroid injections in my feet to keep me going and to keep them supple. I should probably have them every six weeks, but I leave it until they hurt too much and then I go to see my specialist, who tells me off for letting it get to that stage.”
EARNING HER WRINKLES
Despite her plight, the entrepreneur “refuses” to let it get in the way of what she wants to do. She dances for two hours a week – and wears heels!
While the celebrity world may be obsessed with youthful looks, Deborah insists that as she approaches 60, she is proud of every line on her face. Even though trolls on Twitter have urged her to have Botox. She admits, “I have never had any surgery and I am proud of the fact that I would never tamper with my looks. I love the fact that I have earned every line and wrinkle. I don’t spend a lot of time worrying about how I look and I don’t fall into the trap of judging myself by my appearance.
“I can remember someone Tweeting me once, asking why, with all my money, I hadn’t had a face lift – but it’s because I don’t want one. I am quite happy. I look in the mirror and I see lines, but I have earned those lines. It has taken me 59 years to get them and I’m not losing them now.”
NO REGRETS
Deborah’s passion for business started at the age of seven, when she began selling flowers in her street. She left school at 16 and, at 19, she set up her first business, importing ceramics from Italy to sell in the UK – but it folded after 18 months. She then went on to run amusement arcades and, in the early ’90s, made her fortune by investing in family holiday parks. In 2007, she joined Dragons’ Den and is now estimated to be worth £46 million.
But despite loving her work, Deborah is equally as happy at home in Somerset with her husband, as well as their pigs, sheep, horses, ducks and a handful of rescue cats and dogs. The couple met in 1985 when they were both working at Butlins. They married eight years later, although Deborah wasn’t sure her wedding day would ever happen, and says she isn’t concerned she never had children.
She admits, “I had no intention of getting married, but Paul made me marry him. He said, ‘We either get married or I am leaving you.’ I said, ‘Well, all right then, off you go.’ But then I realised that I actually rather liked him and he might be The One. He didn’t make it terribly easy for me, but we worked it out! If we’d had children, it would have been lovely, but it was never high on the agenda. It either happens or it doesn’t. I can’t imagine my life now with children and I have no regrets about the way things have turned out.”