ORE ODUBA Joe’s improved a lot but Stacey will run him close

With the last four celebrities set to battle it out in tonight’s Strictly final, RICHARD BARBER talks to the 2016 victor about who he’s tipping to win, a very elaborate proposal and hosting the show’s next tour

IN HIS 20s, Ore Oduba had two ambitions. “One was to find the woman with whom I wanted to spend the rest of my life,” he says. “The other was to be on Strictly. And here I am at 33 and somehow I’ve achieved both.” And life is getting better all the time. “Two years after winning the show I’ve loved for 15 years” – he beat twinkle-toed Danny Mac and the rapidly improving Louise Redknapp in the final to claim the famous Glitterball – “I’m now hosting the Strictly tour, which begins at the end of January.

“That’s also the month my wife, Portia, and I will celebrate our son Roman’s first birthday. Excuse me…” And, with that, Ore leaps up from the plastic chair on which he’s been sitting in his publicist’s central London office and darts across the room to touch the top of a wooden desk.

He first met Portia at an industry party in 2011. “At that point, I was at the bottom of a trough when it came to women. No one seemed remotely interested in me.”

He and Portia began chatting. “But I knew I didn’t stand a chance with someone so beautiful. In fact, I was more interested in the free Domino’s Pizza on offer. So, rather than chancing my arm by inviting her out, I offered her a pepperoni slice.”

It must have done the trick because the two of them started dating the following week. “I could not believe my luck. Even now, though, not a day goes by when I don’t work desperately hard to keep her in my life. There’s always the fear she’ll find someone better. Joking apart, this last year has been the most testing since we got together, because we now have a baby.

“He’s the best thing ever to have happened to us, but a child doesn’t half put you through the mill.”