New dream if he wins
JAKE Quickenden hopes to skate off with a new career tonight if he lifts the Dancing on Ice trophy. The X Factor and I’m a Celebrity... Get Me out of Here! star is favourite to win the ITV show with odds of 1-6 with bookies Coral. And he says he would love to be a professional skater after discovering a talent for the sport. Jake, 29, has topped the leaderboard ever since week three – and earned the first perfect 40 of the series in last week’s semi-final. He said: “I love skating. I’m 100 per cent going to carry it on. “It’d be great to do it for a living – Disney on Ice came in and I was proper trying to get in the guy’s ear… ‘Do you need another Aladdin? Need a Prince Charming?’ “I played Peter Pan in panto and I can’t fly. So anything is possible. “When I saw them it was incredible. I was passing my business card to producers. As long as I don’t stop skating. I’m going to keep trying to see what happens.” Jake this week revealed he will install an ice rink at his wedding to fiancée Danielle later this year. But he will not be encouraging his biker father-in-law Carl Fogarty to get his skates on. “Carl’s a daredevil,” he said. “He’d likely try to get his bike on there.” Jake, who lost his dad and brother to cancer, says Carl, who he met on I’m A Celebrity in 2014, has been “so supportive”. He said: “Danielle videos him sometimes when he’s watching and he’s on the edge of his seat. He’s obviously my mate and my father-in-law. “But he’s also like a father figure to me as well. The fact that I’ve made him proud is kind of nice.” Jake has spoken of how the deaths of his dad and brother have led him to seize every moment. He said: “I live by ‘what will be will be, what will happen, will happen anyway’. As long as you keep yourself healthy and like a good life and be a nice person, then that’s all I can really do.
“I don’t want to sit and worry. If you did that you’d be worrying for ever. It makes you think how short life can be. That’s why I live life like I do. People say, ‘You’ve been on a lot of reality shows.’ But who cares? I’m having fun.
“It’s amazing. Everything I’ve taken has led me on a journey. I’m pretty much open to try any new things. I like to put myself into something and learn new skills. It’s a good way to live.”
Changed
But Jake admitted he has been taunted by trolls over his losses. He said: “I had a few things about my brother. People said ‘sob story’. But until you’ve been through that… Do they want me to never talk about the fact I’ve been through something like that?
“It’s something that’s changed me. It’s made me grow. And it can help other people.”
As Jake goes into tonight’s final as the hot tip, Brooke Vincent is second-favourite with betting at 5-1, while rugby star Max Evans, 34, is the 16-1 outsider.
Bookies Coral said: “Jake has been extremely popular in the betting for Dancing on Ice ever since week one. Barring any slip-ups it looks like it is going to be an expensive result for the bookies.”
Jake and Max will both perform the dangerous headbanger move. Max’s partner Ale Izquierdo said the move is so risky that someone once died when it went wrong.
“I have seen it end really bad,” she said. “There was a girl who was in coma and I heard another person died.”
But Max said: “Ale trusts me and I feel confident.”