Strictly curse? This is marriage magic.. since I‘ve been practising with Graziano my husband’s upped his game
As the Strictly Come Dancing celebrities step on to the floor for the first time tonight, there will be some anxious partners waiting in the wings.
Kate Silverton says the “curse of Strictly” is already having an effect on her relationship - but not in a bad way.
The BBC newsreader reveals her husband has “upped his game” in the run-up to the launch show, after checking out the show’s male professionals.
Kate reckons husband Mike Heron, a former Royal Marine, was a bit put out when she mentioned that she had been preparing for tonight’s big number with Italian newcomer Graziano Di Prima.
The 24-year-old Sicilian is a cross between a young Johnny Depp and Poldark heart-throb Aidan Turner.
Mum-of-two Kate, 48, says “When I came home on the first day after the group dance, Mike went, ‘So, who were you dancing with today?’ And I went, ‘Oh, you know, that new one, the Italian’ – as if he didn’t know because I’d been going, ‘Oh, look at him!’ I just saw a little flicker.”
Since then, Mike, now a security consultant, has been giving her extra attention and sending her messages at work. Kate says: “He’s upping his game.
“Never mind the Strictly curse, this is marriage magic. I’m getting texts going, ‘You looked really hot this morning, babe’.”
But she insists he has absolutely nothing to fear from the curse, which has seen many an off-screen relationship founder over the years due to the show’s tough schedules and the intimacy with co-stars.
However, Kate says: “I married the love of my life, he’s my soulmate, so we have no worries in that department.”
One of her motivations for taking part in the hit BBC1 show was to drop the two stone she says she has gained since their wedding in 2010. “I think my only aim now is to learn how to dance and to get back into my wedding dress, because that was eight years ago and a lot has happened in that time.” Kate might even persuade Mike to renew their vows. “I think that’s a nice idea as I’ll be 50 in two years.”
She says her wedding day was when she “felt absolutely at my best”.
“It would be nice to get back to that.”
Since she was announced as a Strictly contestant, Mike, who met Kate when she attended a BBC training course on reporting from hostile environments, has been contacted by lots of his old friends. She says: “He’s a military man, so he’s bemused by it all. His special forces mates are actually texting him, going, ‘Can we get tickets?’ He’s like, ‘What?’” The couple had a winter wedding in Fleet Street, London, in 2010. He had proposed two years after they started dating.
Kate said at the time: “I took a shine to him not just because I found him so attractive physically but also because of who he was and the qualities he had.
“That is to say his strength of character, his intelligence and the moral values we share. He is the kind of man who has no
My aim is to learn to dance and to get back into my wedding dress