‘When I hit 50, I lost my way’
Susannah Constantine goes into her first live dance challenge in great shape and ready to have fun, discovers Hannah Betts
‘It’s just so high, so pert, so utterly fantastic. Sorry, I realise we should be focusing on other things. It’s just, Susannah – your a---.” In a moment worthy of Trinny and Susannah in their heyday, I find myself in a west London dance studio transfixed by Susannah Constantine’s backside. At 18, one would be pleased with such a derrière, at 56 it is nothing short of extraordinary: encased in leggings, aloft a pair of cracking legs. And this merely a few days into Constantine’s Strictly Come Dancing rehearsals.
“Ah, but check out Anton’s,” she beams, indicating her partner, king of Strictly, Anton du Beke. “Feel it,” he commands – clad in a shirt, tie and slacks (no trackie bottoms here) – and, indeed, one could crack nuts with the thing.
Tonight sees the first live episode of this season’s Strictly, quenching the nation’s annual thirst for high kicks and high camp. Even those of us who have to fast forward through the non-dancing bits eventually succumb. And, this year, I – along with legions of other women of a certain age – will be tuning in because the show has bagged Susannah Constantine, of What Not to Wear fame, half of the duo still fondly known as “Trinny and susannah,” and official midlife heroine.
For writer and broadcaster Constantine has become the poster woman for those of us past our first flush of youth, but determined to keep buggering on – well documented, in the weeks leading up to the first live show, by clips of her pulling a rib muscle while in training with du Beke, and posting images of herself on Instagram taking medication “for old, knackered horses”.
She was encouraged to do so after tearing her intercostal muscles; “I’ve got no idea what’s in it, but it tastes like I’m eating the entire stable: straw, s---, urine, everything,” she says. “But it’s all human-grade, and I got the sweetest response from the people who make it.”
Beyond sharing news of her unusual supplements on the social media site, her aim there, as well as by being on the show, is “Giving women permission to talk, feel and think the unthinkable”. And she does: posting Rolling back the years: Constantine is happy to look her age at 56 images of herself sans slap, doublebra-ed, or in the tub, Strictly fake tan streaming down her face.
As she put it in her launch show introductory slot: “When I hit my 50s, I lost a lot of confidence. I put on a lot of weight and, basically, I just lost my way. I’m 56 years old now. I’ve been through the menopause. I just want to have fun.” I tell her that this felt like a genuinely radical moment: wielding the m-word on the ultimate prime time, lite entertainment vehicle.
“Really? Really? I suppose you’re right. Well, good for the BBC for keeping it in.”
As for all the current excitement about middle-aged sex in series such as Bodyguard and Wanderlust, she doesn’t understand what the fuss is about. “It’s just what it is and you get on with it. And I think it’s when you realise it’s not about how you look, it’s about how you are. It’s about what you’ve got to say, and what you’ve got to pass on. In tribes in Africa, when a woman reaches menopause, she’s revered because she doesn’t bleed anymore so she retains her wisdom. Whereas up until that point she’s bleeding out her wisdom.”
That said, Constantine does indeed look incredible: good for her age, yet of her age – not 56 pretending to be 23. She hasn’t had anything done?
“No. I mean, I have thought about it. I thought about it before doing this. Do anything if it makes you feel better about yourself. But, then I thought that the make-up and the lighting were going to be so good.”
She keeps fit via cross-country running and resistance training, after losing a stone and a half last year with the help of Sport Relief. (“I needed to. I was a right fat f---.”) And it’s paying off: unlike some of the younger contestants, she isn’t aching, though she does fall asleep the moment her head hits the pillow. And, yet, despite What Not to Wear championing middle-age while its presenters were still spring chickenish, her attitude towards hitting 50 used to be one of fear. “I think that was because of having watched my mum and her rapid decline. She was severely manic-depressive and had very, very high cholesterol, the hereditary kind.
“And so she got early onset dementia, and she had a quadruple heart bypass when she was 54. I saw what my mother went through and how, from then on, her life was pretty much over mentally, psychologically, and physically to a degree. So I think that’s probably where the fear came from.” One criticism she has made of midlife is its rendering women “invisible”. Appearing on Strictly occupies the opposite extreme.
“I’ve always had this all or nothing thing. It’s about challenging yourself, and this is the biggest challenge I think anyone can do. I’m very lucky to have been asked. It’s kind of like jumping off a cliff. If you can jump off the cliff and survive, then you can do anything.” Actually, it sounds a lot worse than merely jumping off a cliff: involving jumping off a cliff live, in front of an audience, in rhinestones –
‘Seeing what my mother went through made me scared of ageing’
– then having to do it all again. Her father was an artist, buoyed by money from property and shipping. His daughter was homeschooled at Belvoir Castle until the age of
12 (“I basically had no education”), thereafter at St Mary’s, Wantage. On being asked to come back and speak, she returned the invitation with
“No f------ way” inscribed on it.
Constantine became known as a society gal, albeit one who grafted; for six years she went out with Viscount Linley, son of Princess Margaret. “I absolutely
adored her: a very, very cool woman.” Her exes also include Imran Khan, whom she texted to congratulate on his recent appointment as Prime Minister of Pakistan.
She met Trinny Woodall at a party in 1994. It wasn’t a case of love at first sight. “She looked at me and thought: ‘Sloane’. I looked at her and thought: ‘Euro trash’.” They were an unlikely pairing for the age of Brit pop and New Labour, posh girls bent on democratising fashion, first in The Telegraph, later all over the gogglebox. Yet, their candour and can-do attitude endeared them to the public. Their bond remains such
that, over a decade on from the show’s ending, they are in contact several times a week. “And, then, when we see each other it’s, like, ugh, the relief. It’s like coming home.”
Actual home is a 120-acre Sussex mansion that she shares with her
dashing husband, risk management expert Sten Bertelsen, three children, four dogs, two cats, and a budgie. Joe, 19, has just headed off to university; Esme, 17, boasts Elton John as a godfather; and Cece is about to turn 15, peak mortification age regarding parental exploits. Are they proud of her athleticism? “It’s hard to impress my children.” So too for her literary work: Susannah’s first novel was wellreceived, though a new one, due to be finished this October, has since been delayed.
Constantine may have done I’m
a Celebrity… in 2015 for the money, but this is clearly an act of love, not least for du Beke. She greeted news of their pairing with the cry: “Bring on the Strictly curse!” Their closeness is palpable, as is her enthusiasm for her fellow contestants (her money’s on Charles Venn, or Stacey Dooley as champ). “It really is a family. That’s one of the reasons I wanted to do it
because I was envious of seeing everybody standing there so clearly supporting each other. Now I’m not working with Trinny, I miss that camaraderie and ‘we can conquer anything’ feeling.”
As ever, gossip abounds. She and du Beke are said to be at war, when nothing could be further from the truth, and she is rumoured to be behaving imperiously with the costume department.
In fact, she cannot praise them enough and longs to purchase some of the outfits, for sporting while making supper for her offspring, or during arguments with her husband. Having a row over the washing up dressed head to toe in spangled Lycra? If anyone can pull it off, my money’s on Constantine.
Strictly Come Dancing is on BBC One
tonight at 6.15pm