The night I had SEX on Strictly
Sparkling with gossip. Dripping with venom. Ola Jordan lifts the lid on the show’s most explosive secrets – from screaming catfights between stars to Craig’s vicious attack on Arlene and how Brucie almost interrupted...
With her model looks, dazzling routines and daring outfits, Ola Jordan won the hearts of Strictly fans. She and her dancer husband James were at the heart of our best-loved show – but only now can Ola’s explosive new book reveal the truth about life behind the scenes with TV’s sexiest stars...
ILOVED Sir Bruce Forsyth from the moment I first met him, when he chatted to me and my husband James in rehearsals. He was interested in our lives, and he just seemed to be such a genuine, lovely man. In fact, everybody loved him. Whenever you bumped into Brucie in the BBC TV Centre corridors, he’d always stop for a little chat and ask how things were going.
However, there was one time when I really wished he’d just hurried past without stopping.
James and I shared a dressing room, and one time things got very passionate between us before a show. We’d been apart doing different rehearsals all week and had really missed each other.
‘Ola, you look amazing,’ James said, pulling me towards him and looking at me longingly in my little sparkly dress. I could tell immediately what was on his mind.
‘What do you think? We’ll be too tired when we get home later…’
‘James!’ I cried. ‘What do you mean? We can’t have sex at the BBC!’
‘Why not? Who’ll know? We’re a married couple. Come on, Ola, I’ve missed you so much…’
James looked gorgeous and I couldn’t say no.
‘Well, just don’t mess up my hair and make-up!’ I teased.
We were running late for rehearsals by the time we emerged, breathless and looking a little bit flustered, having hastily thrown our costumes back on.
‘Ola! James!’ a familiar voice boomed out. I knew immediately who this was: it was Brucie. His dressing room was close to ours and he had happened to be walking past our door at the exact moment we came out.
‘How lovely to see you. How are you both?’ ‘Fine!’ we chirped. ‘Ola, you’re looking as lovely as ever. Radiant, in fact!’
I wanted the ground to swallow me up. When he walked away, James and I collapsed into a fit of giggles.
‘Aren’t you meant to have a cigarette afterwards, not a chat with Bruce Forsyth?’ I laughed.
A SHOWDOWN WITH MR NASTY
OTHER stars weren’t so easy to get along with.
James once asked Craig Revel Horwood, the Strictly judge who was also the creative director of the live tours, if we could change a section of a dance. ‘No, we can’t,’ came the curt reply.
When James stuck to his guns, Craig bellowed: ‘You do as you’re told! You’re just a dancer.’
Craig is well known for his onscreen put-downs, of course, but this was something else.
The red mist descended in front of James’s eyes and he totally lost it, threatening Craig and shouting at him.
‘I’ve never been spoken to like that in my life before,’ James complained to the producer later. ‘It’s just not on. I don’t understand why the BBC lets him carry on like that.’
Worse was to come when James and I took part in a P&O cruise organised by BBC Worldwide. This meant putting on a show at sea and hosting Q&A sessions for guests as we sailed around the Mediterranean and the Canaries.
Craig and fellow judge Darcey Bussell were also there, and one night I found myself in the bar with both of them, plus two representatives from BBC Worldwide and some other dancers and producers.
When James joined us later, Craig had had a drink, and things turned nasty. He would often drink after the Saturday night Strictly show and there would be bottles of wine already waiting for him on a reserved table.
First of all, he started criticising one of the long-serving professional girls. What he had to say was so shocking I would never repeat it, and then he turned his attention to Arlene Phillips, the well-respected judge who had been replaced on the panel by the much younger Alesha Dixon, the pop singer and former Strictly contestant.
‘She was s*** at her job and that’s why she went,’ Craig said. ‘It had nothing to do with ageism.’
Darcey tried to shut him up diplomatically.
Len Goodman was next in his firing line.
‘So he’s written another book? Who wants to hear about him? He’s a boring old man,’ said Craig.
He still hadn’t finished, and next he got started on Brendan Cole, one of our fellow pro-dancers. By that point James had had enough and was ready to blow. ‘Craig,’ he said. ‘I don’t appreciate you talking about my friends like this.’ It was a small, intimate bar and it was deeply embarrassing. ‘Who are you, James?’ Craig retorted loudly. ‘You were nothing before Strictly. You’re a no one!’ James snapped back: ‘I’m a no one? You were just a backing dancer for Arlene Phillips before Strictly. But you know what you are now, Craig?’ James then used a very rude word to describe Craig before saying to me: ‘Ola, I think it’s time to leave.’ Once we were back in the UK, James was called to a meeting with senior BBC executives where he was questioned over his ‘unacceptable’ behaviour. But for all the lows – and you try living off 600 calories a day – Strictly has been truly fantastic, the greatest TV show on Earth. Winning the show with the BBC presenter Chris Hollins in 2009 was the greatest moment of my life.
JEALOUS JAMES AND ‘THE CURSE’
OTHER problems came with the supposed ‘curse of Strictly’, which struck when contestants ended up dating their dance partners, wrecking their relationships outside the show. James, like any man, was not immune to jealousy occasionally.
When the producer in my first series of Strictly suggested I kiss my partner, Radio 1’s DJ Spoony, at the end of a routine to the Prince song Kiss, James said: ‘Er, I don’t think so. The only man who kisses Ola is me!’ He said it in a light-hearted way but the truth was that he found it very difficult to see me dancing intimately with another man.
When I was partnered with footballer Robbie Savage for the 2011 series, we were photographed coming out of an Italian restaurant together, and even though James knew there was nothing going on, he still got in a bit of a mood about it.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said afterwards. ‘I’m jealous, I admit it. It’s not your fault, Ola, but I’m just telling you how I feel.’
On one occasion, however, he positively encouraged my celebrity dance partner to get closer to me.
For a sportsman, former Scotland rugby player Kenny Logan’s coordination was really bad, and he was probably the worst dancer in terms of natural ability I ever worked with on Strictly.
‘Look mate, you have to act like you mean it,’ James told Kenny when he was trying to learn the rumba. ‘You have to look as if you want to make love to Ola. You have
to really go for it.’ James then got a lot more than he bargained for – and so did I. Kenny suddenly switched into passionate lover mode, standing behind me and caressing me very sensually. I felt his big hands run down my arms, brush past my boobs, and land firmly on my hips. ‘Is that good enough?’ Kenny said triumphantly, before giving a roguish smirk. James spluttered and replied: ‘There was no need to go that far, mate!’ I giggled and added: ‘Too good.’ Thankfully James saw the funny side. I can totally understand, however, how male celebs can feel shy and worried about getting up close and personal with a scantily clad girl partner. In ballroom dancing the man has to press his right side into the woman, and all professional male dancers know that they have to ‘dress to the left’ when they are preparing to dance, as you connect right side to right side with your partner. The woman can feel absolutely everything – and I mean everything! If the man hasn’t ‘dressed to the left’ there is a danger he might get a bit excited, especially if he has to rub up against the woman during a routine. The celebs usually needed the whole thing explaining, which was always funny for the pro-dancers – and an eye-opener for the stars.
Sometimes the male celebs forgot the advice and would be embarrassed when a female dancer had to say: ‘Ooh, I think you need to move that to the other side!’
Occasionally it was too late and some of the men inevitably became aroused. This happened to me over the years, with one or two of the celebs I danced with after Kenny.
‘Oh dear,’ I thought, ‘that shouldn’t be there!’ I’d seen this particular celeb empty his pockets before we started rehearsing together so I knew that the bulge was what I feared it was.
‘Did you leave your mobile phone in your pocket?’ I teased. ‘Put your willy in the right place!’
Breaking wind was another problem for the male celebs. Over the years I’ve heard quite a few of my partners go ‘pop’ when they’ve lifted me up, because of the effort involved in a lift.
I always tried to make a joke of it, but there were one or two who were mortified and tried to pretend it hadn’t happened. I’d keep a straight face so as not to embarrass them, but we both knew the truth.
Even so, there were still moments of jealousy from James.
‘Ola, you won’t run off with a dance partner, will you?’ he would tease sometimes, coming up to me like a love-sick puppy.
‘No,’ I would say. ‘I love you, James. You know how much I love you. I would never do that.
‘But if you want to run off for a little while, I really don’t mind. I would like the break…’
MAKE-UP MAGIC (AND MISTAKES)
I WAS constantly amazed at what the hair and make-up artists could achieve in a short space of time, under intense pressure. Hardly surprisingly, they did have the occasional mishap because of the volume of work they had to cope with and the stress of meeting TV deadlines.
It’s well known backstage that one of the hairdressers left the show several years ago after mixing up the dyes for two of the professional dancers. The girl who was meant to go red ended up brown and vice versa – and to make matters worse the two dancers in question didn’t like each other.
On Strictly, there’s no such thing as a dull day.
Strictly Ola: My Story, by Ola Jordan, is published by St James’ House, priced £14.99. To get your copy for £11.99 (20 per cent discount) order at mailbookshop. co.uk or call 0844 571 0640.
When male celebs get up close, things get awkward