MyJamesa gigolo? Strictly no way!
When her partner started giving private dance lessons to rich, lonely women with a hunger for more than a rumba, hurtful rumours started swirling. But here Ola Jordan insists...
LAST WEEK, Strictly dancer Ola revealed the jealousies, rows and VERY haughty off-screen behaviour on Britain’s favourite show. Today, in the final extract from her brilliant new book, she tells of an unlikely romance with husband and dancer James – and the lavish attention he attracts from other women…
IT WAS the place to be… teeming with money and seemingly endless opportunities to dance the night away. James and I were dance partners and not yet a couple in a romantic way but when, in 2000, he was offered the chance to teach in Hong Kong, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to join him.
The place was full of wealthy dance students – typically mature ladies – who had a great passion for ballroom. These well-to-do women normally had a lot of time on their hands as their husbands worked long hours, or they were retired, widowed or divorced.
As well as taking several private classes a day with their chosen coach, they would attend dinner dances where dancers and students ate together before taking to the dancefloor.
It was well known that some of the ladies showered their partners with extremely extravagant gifts such as sports cars, which inevitably raised questions about exactly what the deal was between them.
‘I feel like a gigolo!’ James joked when I asked him how his first dinner dance went. ‘But you don’t mean…’ I gasped. ‘Ola – no! I would never, ever do that!’
I laughed, and I felt my heart pound. I was more relieved than I possibly should have been. Of course, James was not my boyfriend, but I certainly would not have liked to think of him being one of ‘those’ boys who would sleep with a wealthy student.
Until now, I hadn’t even acknowledged to myself how I truly felt about James but he seemed jealous when I talked about other men.
When we were in my hotel room one day, I said: ‘You idiot! I don’t want to go on dates with other boys. It’s you I like!’
I saw his expression soften as he said: ‘I like you too, Ola. I have the same feelings.’
We gazed at each other, and then we looked again at the bed between us. It needed remaking, but we both had the same thought: ‘We can make it afterwards…’
Over the next three years, things went from strength to strength until one day James said: ‘Ola. Do you think we should get married?’
‘Marriage? Well, James… are you serious?’
‘Think about it,’ he said. ‘We know we’ll get married some time, so why not now?’
‘James, have you just proposed to me?’
‘Well, yes, I suppose I have… Ola Jordan. It has a nice ring to it.’
I told him I could not have felt happier. I’d been home to Poland with James and I knew my parents liked him a lot, even though they still couldn’t understand a word he said. ‘Perhaps that’s why they like you, James,’ I often teased.
JAMES was very naughty and in front of my parents he would say: ‘Ola, I want to take you to bed.’ My dad would ask in Polish: ‘What did James say?’ and I’d have to make something up. ‘He says he wants to taste the soup.’ ‘Of course!’ Dad would smile, passing the bowl, while James was trying his hardest not to laugh.
We got married on October 12, 2003, at Cooling Castle in Kent. I had just turned 21. James and I had everything we wanted, despite having a low budget. After the ceremony, we had a carvery and when James and I had our first dance, we kept it casual and intimate. It was our moment, not a time to show off – but we later did a rumba to a Michael Jackson song. The day was perfect.
But married life didn’t tame James and his party-animal ways.
Back in Hong Kong, where we had by now settled, he was regularly partying until 5am. Often James would crawl home on his hands and knees, with rips in his clothing. I’d put him in the shower sometimes to sober him up. One day, he staggered into the apartment in the early hours, clutching his stomach and barely able to walk. ‘Ola, I’m dying! The pain is excruciating.’ A doctor back in Britain suspected he had ulcers but the test results showed nothing and he concluded that James’s lifestyle seemed to be at the root of his problem. James told our friends and family afterwards: ‘I’ve been a silly boy, and it’s time to change.’ This wild life was a world away from where I had started out…
I WAS born in September 1982 and named Aleksandra Grabowska, but everyone called me Ola – a nickname typically used for all Polish girls named Aleksandra.
Our family home was an incredibly small two-bedroom apartment on the fourth floor of an 11-storey block of flats in the town of Legionowo, 14 miles north-east of Warsaw. During the Second World War, our town housed a German prison camp, and when the Warsaw Uprising took place, several Polish rebels were executed in a military shelter there. Looking back, Legionowo seemed to have scarcely moved on from its sad past.
In all my early childhood memories, nearly everything around me in the town is grey and grim. Life was far from easy for my parents. My dad, Dariusz, owned 50 per cent of an electrical company and my mother, Janina, worked in an office. Meat was scarce and only obtained
through government tokens on a sheet of card that you tore off one at a time and presented to the local shopkeeper.
One day, my grandad returned home dragging a whole pig from the market into my grandmother’s kitchen. It barely fitted in the room, but somehow my mum and gran managed to cut it up and cook practically every part of it. Another time, my dad came home triumphant, holding a rabbit he had found running wild. He told how he killed it and my grandmother turned it into a pâté, which we all devoured. We always had enough to eat but you learned to live in a constant state of cautious uncertainty around food, just in case supplies were cut off overnight.
What mattered most was that I was loved and cared for – what more does a child need? But I dreamt of other things. I was just eight years old – often dressed in a well-worn grey tracksuit and with my hair in mousy shoulder-length plaits – but I knew that when I grew up, I wanted to be like the dancers in my fav- ourite TV show, gliding and twirling with amazing skill around the shinyfloored ballroom.
It was the women who really captured my attention, immaculate and alluring with their deep, golden tans and the most amazing dresses. Here was another world but I was determined to get there.
My parents, who realised I was serious about my dancing ambition, arranged for me to have lessons and my dad, who had an artistic streak, even made my first competition costume. Everything I did was focused on dancing. I remember a boy I was dating telling me: ‘Ola, I want to have three kids and a dog.’
‘What?’ I gulped and felt as if I’d swallowed a stone. I wanted to travel and have a career first. I started to think about how fragile life was and I wanted to make the most of it.
With my dance partner, Przemek Lowicki, I travelled to the World Youth Championships in Vienna. I was still only 16 when I got to dance in the ballroom in the Winter Gardens at Blackpool. One contestant that day caught my eye. He was tall and good-looking with slicked-back black hair and piercing blue eyes. His dancing was amazing – hardly surprising given that he was ranked as one of the best dancers in the world for his age group.
BUT soon after Blackpool, I realised it was impossible for my parents to fund any more trips. So I took a deep breath and phoned Przemek with a heavy heart to tell him I simply could not carry on. A phone call from England soon changed that. The woman on the line said James Jordan – the blue-eyed dancer I’d so admired in Blackpool a few months earlier – was looking for a new partner. James flew to Poland to meet me for a trial.
‘Oh my God,’ I thought. ‘This gorgeous thing has flown in to dance with me!’ I’ll never forget that first dance. I felt completely at ease right from the start, and I know now that James felt the same. In fact, after just three steps he had made his mind up that he wanted me to be his next dance partner. ‘Can you move to England?’ he asked, smiling. ‘Yes,’ I blurted out immediately. My dad was not so keen. I was only 17 and my parents were not sure about sending me to England on my own, or how they could fund it. There was also a question mark hanging over James’s reputation for having ‘an eye for the girls’. It didn’t matter to me. After all, James was a potential dance partner, not a potential boyfriend. But James assured my parents that he would help me find somewhere to rent near his dance studios in Kent. So they agreed to let me go and gave me the equivalent of £300 to take. It wiped out their savings. Once in England, I learnt English by watching EastEnders so it was funny when, years later, Strictly paired me with Sid Owen, who played Ricky in the soap. In England, James’s family – his mum Sharon, dad Alan and big sister Kelly – made me welcome by inviting me over for dinner. Halfway through the meal, James asked me a question about something he planned to do that I disagreed with. ‘No James, you can’t!’ I said. There were sharp intakes of breath all around the table. His grandma in particular gasped in horror. James had to explain that the way I pronounced ‘can’t’ in my Polish accent sounded like a very impolite word. At the time it was mortifying. It’s hard to think that since then I’ve had a decade of practice talking in front of live cameras. For now, of course, I’ve said goodbye to Strictly. My life has moved on and I want to be a mother. So next Sunday I’ll still be looking forward to the show… But, like you, I’ll be calling in my vote from the comfort of my own sofa.