My brain and my feet have Strictly no connection The Last Word

Louise co-hosts BBC TV show Breakfast from Monday to Wednesday. She’s married with two daughters and reveals her love of Harry Potter and why shedshe’d never appear on Strictly..

SHINE... RISE AND Breakfast Louise on

What Whatdoyou do you like towatch?towatch?

Line Of Duty has been one of my favourite shows of recent years and Killing Eve. I love Jodie Comer. Then my children pull me into things that I normally wouldn’t have chosen. My younger daughter and I got absolutely addicted to Stranger Things.

Do you enjoy shows together as a family?

We do. Harry Potter is a constant theme in our household. In lockdown, we watched the whole of Star Wars from the beginning to end, every single one. I’m a huge fan of Strictly. We’ve watched that for years.

A few of your Breakfast colleagues have been on Strictly. Would you do it?

I have been asked but I don’t know why because I’m a terrible dancer and, as such, I am on a lifelong ban from my family. So there’s no way I would do it. I would be so embarrassing. Everyone assumes that because I do lots of exercise that I could do it. But my brain and my feet have no relation to each other.

What are your guilty pleasures?

Love Island – the children adore it. I sit down for what I think will be two minutes and 25 minutes later I know who everyone is and who they want to be with. We also watch quite a lot of Keeping Up With The Kardashians and I’m A Celebrity – I love that.

And what inspires you?

I’m an event TV watcher. So for me, this summer has been devastating, obviously because of coronavirus but also because of the huge sporting activities that have been cancelled. I’ve been going back and watching the Olympic highlights from years gone by. You’re 52 but when you were 47 you represented Great Britain in your age category at the World Triathlon Championships

...What started your passion for sport?

It came from the telly. In 2012, one of my producers said, “We’re going to do a Christmas special competition. What should we do?” I said, “Why don’t we do something inspired by the Olympics?” So we did a cycle race in a velodrome but I hadn’t done a race since I was 15. When I went over that finishing line I was like, “Oh, I forgot how much I love to race.”

What other projects are you working on?

I present a podcast about sport called Her Spirit. We started it just before lockdown. We’re talking to people from all walks of life, but also Stacey Copeland, the boxer, and Dame Kelly Holmes. I’d love to do that on telly. BBC Breakfast is on daily, BBC1, from 6am.

‘During lockdown we watched the whole of Star Wars from the beginning to end’ Louise Minchin