I have battled anxiety, been a recluse... now Strictly’s got me back on the front foot
Pair stepping in the danger zone
HOW SHE WAS SAVED BY DANCING
Week two and some of the celebs upped their game... and some didn’t.
Plodders at the bottom of the leaderboard and most likely to be in tonight’s dance off are Katie Piper and Susannah Constantine.
Katie is trying her heart out but looks terrified and tearful and Susannah is plain hopeless, scoring 13
really care to everyone else. I just wanted to hide myself away and living in the countryside, I was able to do this.
“Friends said to me that the only reason I was moving to the countryside was so I didn’t have to put make-up on every day, which is sort of true.
“I have such a full and busy life that I put myself at the bottom of the list like so many women do. And for someone like me, the background I have got, I had come across so many women like the one that I had become, it was ironic.
“I was at a point where I needed Trinny and Susannah to sort me out.”
Despite being a fashion expert, Susannah couldn’t get excited about the thing that made her famous. “I took no out of 40, one point more than last week’s Strictly low of 12.
Comic Seann Walsh struggled too, scoring 15 for his unintentionally funny jive, saying he “needed a wee”.
Cha-cha-chaing to the top of the leaderboard, Pussycat Doll Ashley scored 32 and won praise all round. ■ To see who is out in the dance off, watch tonight on BBC One at 7.15pm
joy in clothes any more. I couldn’t zip up my old black dress and so all the joy in my appearance had gone and the self-confidence that it gives you and being able to switch from a slob.
“Being able to turn it on if you are going out and put something great on and feel a million dollars – I didn’t have that any more.”
And until Strictly, she struggled to get any work on TV.
“I find that no one wants to employ a rather large middle-aged woman.
“It’s hard to rebrand yourself when for so long Trinny and I were so much of a unit and it was Trinny and Susannah. To just be Susannah takes a long time to establish and then you have got to get a network to want to take a middle-aged woman and put her in something new – that just does not happen.
“Women in their fifties all of a sudden become invisible.”
After Craig Revel Horwood awarded her a meagre one and told she looked like a “drunken party” on last week’s show, Susannah was hoping to get more constructive feedback this weekend. I thought they were pretty fair but it would be nice to get some constructive advice afterwards.” And if her Strictly journey ends tonight, she is already looking ahead. “Writing is always what I have enjoyed the most so I am forging another career for myself and I am working on my second novel.” janine.yaqoob@ trinitymirror.com