Why Debbie McGee fears she could fall for a gold digger
Two years after Paul Daniels’ death, his widow makes a brave admission
WHaT an unlikely confession from Debbie McGee, surely the ultimate Dancing Queen. ‘I sometimes wish I had a 9-5 job,’ says the woman who is showbiz to the core.
‘I do wonder if the routine, the need to get out of bed in the morning to get to the office, the knowledge that I’d be home at 5.30pm, so I could plan my life, would make it easier.’
She gives a laugh, aware than an office job — with its boring stability and lack of sequins — represents everything she has always railed against. ‘I love what I do,’ she says. ‘It’s all I’ve ever wanted. But I’m not sure it helps with all this.’
By ‘ all this’ she means the grief process, the unwanted rollercoaster she has been on since Paul Daniels — her husband, partner-in-patter, teacher, cruise ship buddy and best friend — died in 2016, just weeks after being diagnosed with a brain tumour.
last year, when she became the undisputed star of Strictly Come Dancing — despite not winning the glitterball trophy — it seemed Debbie had triumphed over personal tragedy.
Her high-kicks on that dance floor represented a new and welcome chapter. We might have baulked a little at first — who knew the McGee gusset would dominate our Saturday nights? — but you had to cheer her progress.
Overnight the 59-year-old became the poster girl for resilience and recovery, proving she could not only stand on her own two feet again, but pirouette on them too, in quite dizzying fashion.
Rumours of an affair with her Strictly co-star Giovanni — ‘as if!’ she giggles. ‘Maybe if I was 30 years younger, but I’m not stupid!’ — seemed to rejuvenate her. Surely, the ‘lovely Debbie McGee’ — as her late husband always proudly introduced her — would soon be ready for a new romantic chapter in her life?
Before, she never understood how anyone who lost a partner could remarry so quickly. ‘ You know those people you hear about who marry again after a year, or two years? I never got it. I always thought: “Why would you do that?” ’
Now, she thinks she understands — and says it is nothing to do with replacing that partner, quelling loneliness or having someone to watch TV with.
‘When you love someone, and they die, that love doesn’t die, too. You still have it, but what do you do with it? Where does it go? You want it to go somewhere.’
Paul always assumed, being older, he would die first, and they joked about her new husband. ‘He’d say, “Don’t let him get his hands on my golf clubs.”’
Now, though, it’s not that simple. and Debbie is also aware she is a rich widow with a big house and an empty bed. Ripe for being taken advantage of.
‘Oh yes, that is very much an issue,’ she says. ‘I’m not very trusting. I haven’t had that sparkle with anyone.
‘Not that I’m against the idea. If I walk into the hotel lobby and meet someone today, then great, but if I’m honest, I’m a bit afraid of that idea. I’d like it to happen but I’m afraid of getting hurt.’
Her vulnerability — rarely on display — was heightened after Strictly. For with the end of the show, came the crash.
‘It didn’t come immediately after Strictly,’ she recalls. ‘I did panto afterwards — God knows how I got through that, but I did. Then I went on tour with Strictly. Then around March — a difficult month because Paul died in March, his birthday is in March, our anniversary is in March — I got home, and I just stopped.
‘I didn’t want to get out of bed. I couldn’t make a cup of tea. Part of it must have been sheer physical exhaustion, but there was more to it. I changed. My brain had changed. I’ve always been the most optimistic person. If I’m feeling low I can look in the mirror and say: “Come on, Debbie, let’s do this. Put on your make-up and smile.” Suddenly I couldn’t.
‘I got anxious, in a way I have never been anxious before. I started to worry about everyone around me getting ill, dying. We really had had a terrible run of ill-health in the family.
‘It wasn’t just Paul. My dad died not long before Paul. My nephew was diagnosed with cancer. My niece’s husband died — of a brain tumour, too. He was in his 20s.
‘Suddenly, I started to think: “What if my mum got cancer? What if I got ill?” You start worrying about what might happen. Catastrophising, really.
‘It wasn’t prolonged — there was a week where it was particularly intense — but I was still shocked by it, because it wasn’t me. I was having moments where I wasn’t looking forward to the future, which I never had before.’
There were physical manifestations, too. Strictly gave her a waistline the envy of a 20-yearold, but in the weeks afterwards, even when she wasn’t training manically, she lost a worrying amount of weight. ‘I went down to seven st o ne . I looked anorexic — my face was gaunt, my boobs went. But I couldn’t put on weight. Friends thought I wasn’t eating, but I was. It was just the grief. I’m back on track now; I’ve put that half-stone back on.’
Had she hurled herself into Strictly too early?
‘No, because it lit up my life. But I suppose the grief was still there, but pushed down. It had to come out. I’d been in that Strictly bubble, surrounded by people for so long, then suddenly I was on my own. Everyone kept saying “It will hit you” and it did.’
For the first time, she saw a grief counsellor. and the biggest lesson learned? ‘ That it doesn’t necessarily get easier. In some ways it gets harder. Grief isn’t just about missing the person.
‘Grieving causes anxieties you didn’t have before. You change, as a person. I always thought I was strong, I could handle anything, surmount anything. I am getting there again, back to the old Debbie, but it’s taking time.’
She arrives for our interview at a Buckinghamshire hotel looking like a human dynamo, in white jeans and a halo of blonde hair.
Out of a clothes bag come scarlet shoes with a statement heel.
‘There’s a story behind these,’ she says.
‘Paul and I were walking down Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills — where I would shop — and I spotted them in a window.
‘as we were looking, the sales girl was standing in the doorway. She was stunning — statuesque, gorgeous. I said to Paul: “Tell you what, you can go in and flirt with her if you buy me these.” and he did. They cost £600. I’d never spend that on a pair of shoes.’
She reflects for a moment. ‘Come to think of it, when Paul died I
did go on a few shopping sprees. I thought it would cheer me up. It didn’t.’
Did she make a habit of encouraging Paul (who once admitted he’d slept with hundreds of women before Debbie) to flirt?
‘Oh, Paul flirted with everyone. He flirted with men, too. I worked out what it was — he just wanted to make everyone feel good.’
People assume Debbie’s Barbie persona — blonde curls, short skirts, coral lips — came about because Paul liked it. actually, it was the opposite. ‘He used to say: “You don’t need make-up.” I’ve always been quite formal like that. I put make-up on even if I’m just doing the gardening.
‘My look is quite old-fashioned, but I get that from my mum. She’s 81 and still glamorous, always “done”.’
‘I will wear jeans now. I’ve had my hair cut, which I wouldn’t have done ten years ago. I’m still not trendy and never will be. I’m just not a casual sort of person.’
Paul’s clothes are still at home, folded neatly in cases. ‘Some have gone to a charity shop, but I’m not ready to get rid of everything. His things are still there.
‘He was very intelligent. I think I’m quite bright — not the ditzy blonde people think — but I didn’t have his education. I only realised after he died how much he was always learning — and he’d share that with me.
‘He’d say, “listen to this great thing on Radio 4”, or tell me something he’d read about a new invention. I miss that.’
Her dad was quietly against the union, but clever enough not to oppose it outright. ‘He said: “Be careful. He is a famous man, and women will be interested in him.
‘Get involved if you want to, but remember you may not be
The One.” ’ Did she worry? ‘At first, yes, of course. In your 20s, you don’t have that confidence.’ Later? ‘No. I knew he adored me.’ She hates that people think she was ‘a poor dancer’ who snared a millionaire (she laughed at that Mrs Merton question about what she saw in the millionaire Paul Daniels, but it rankled).
‘I had my own flat and car when we got together, and had nearly paid off the mortgage. I didn’t buy as much as a packet of polo mints for three years.’
Their wealth was exaggerated (‘We never had as much as people seemed to think’) but they were savvy. ‘Paul saved, so he could turn work down. We weren’t big spenders.’
Debbie handled the finances. ‘Everything,’ she nods. ‘I paid the bills, sorted it out. I gave him pocket money. Well, not quite, but sort of. We didn’t have the same tastes, but we consulted. Ultimately, though I tended to get my way.’
Has she considered how Paul would have coped, had she gone first? ‘I don’t think he would have coped,’ she says. ‘He always used to say I was his reason for living. That’s not me being bigheaded. It’s the way it was.’
Debbie insists she isn’t lonely. She surrounds herself with people and keeps busy. She has a large, extended family, though she and Paul didn’t have children. ‘Paul already had children and didn’t want more, and I wonder if that was part of the attraction for me.
‘But he never really believed I didn’t want them either. He thought I’d change my mind, or that I wasn’t telling the truth. He even asked my dad once, who confirmed I’d never been maternal, never played with dolls like my sister.
‘The truth is I never wanted to replicate myself. There was never a hole that I wanted to fill. There was never a hole in my life at all — not until Paul died.’
Debbie’s 60 next month. ‘It was going to be a big year of celebrations. Paul was going to be 80 this year, too. We were going to do something huge, but now I think I’ll have dinner with friends.’
She is close to Paul’s eldest two sons from his first marriage, but there was a fraught history with Junior, Paul’s youngest boy. He lashed out at not being included in his father’s will, and called Debbie a witch in an interview.
How are things there? ‘It is more settled, but I find it sad. I tried to reach out. I was very generous to Junior, but his problems weren’t just with me, but with the rest of the family. It happens, but there is only so much you can do.’
She only cries once, when talking about Paul’s grandchildren, who call her Nana. ‘I used to hate it because I thought I wasn’t old enough to be a Nana, but now I like it. They come and stay.
‘Paul adored his grandchildren, and I feel it’s a privilege they still want me in their lives. Often the stepmother is pushed out when someone dies. I’m very lucky. Paul didn’t suffer that much, in the grand scheme of it. We had an amazing marriage, right up until the end. I know I was blessed.’
She will survive. That show-must-goon ethos is in her bones. ‘But I know now that part of getting through it means being kinder to myself,’ she says. ‘I’m not quite as strong as I thought I was.’