Stacey’s grief on her absent dad
STRICTLY favourite Stacey Dooley was devastated about failing to reconcile with her dad before he died, mum Diane has revealed.
She said TV reporter Stacey, 31, who dances with Kevin Clifton on Strictly, never had a “bond” with her dad, who left when Stacey was two.
Diane said: “He was only living with her and me until she was two and a half. It wasn’t until she was nine that she saw him again. “When he tried to come back in her life in a more meaningful way when she was 13 it was too late.”
She added: “When he died in his late 50s she was sad. She was in her 20s.”
A source added: “There was no animosity, it just didn’t work out.”
Stacey talks about their “fractured” relationship in her book On the Front Line with the Women Who Fight Back. She will get her MBE for services to broadcasting at Buckingham Palace on Thursday.