Barrymore’s skating back on to TV screens for the first time in 14 years
AFTER more than a decade away from the limelight, Michael Barrymore is set for a television return in the next series of Dancing On Ice.
Once one of the best-known TV presenters in Britain, he has made just a handful of appearances since he took part in Celebrity Big Brother in 2006.
His career nosedived after Stuart Lubbock, a 31- year- old factory worker, was found dead in his swimming pool after a drug-fuelled party at the star’s Essex home in 2001.
He was arrested over the death six years later but freed without charge.
Appearing via video message on ITV’s This Morning yesterday, Mr Barrymore said: ‘I’m delighted to say that I’ll be joining the Dancing on Ice line-up for 2020. I’m looking forward to meeting Holly and Phil. I’m very excited... it’s performance time!’
Best known for quiz and reality shows including Strike It Lucky, My Kind Of People and My Kind Of Music, he said earlier this year that he would like to make a return to television ‘if it’s the right thing to do’.
During an appearance on Piers Morgan’s Life Stories in June this year he publicly apologised for the death of Mr Lubbock because it happened at his home.
‘If you’re the owner of the house, you’re responsible,’ he said, but he insisted that he had not given the dead man any drugs.
‘I gave Stuart nothing,’ he said. ‘Whatever he took – the E’s (ecstacy) he apparently had at the club.
‘There were no E’s at my house. I had a joint with the guys. If there’s cocaine but he didn’t get it from me.’