While the partners of many celebs have had good reason to be worried about their famous other halves signing up for Strictly Come Dancing over the years, because of the infamous “Strictly curse”, that’s apparently not been the case for Fleur East’s husband.
In fact, the singer’s appearance on this year’s series of the BBC dance show has had the opposite effect and done wonders for her relationship with husband Marcel Badiane-Robin.
During an appearance on this week’s Graham Norton Show, the former X Factor finalist said Strictly had been a “blessing” for her marriage – and one routine in particular made quite the impression.
“The show’s been a blessing for my marriage, it’s been great,” Fleur told Graham.
“We’ve been together for 12 years and how often in your marriage do you dress up and look different every week, and get to do all these sexy dances in front of your husband?”
She added: “After the Argentine Tango it was like we got married again! It was wonderful.”
Fleur previously revealed that Marcel is so supportive of her Strictly journey that he had been encouraging her to turn up the heat ahead of her performing her Argentine Tango last month.
Speaking on her Hits Radio breakfast show, Fleur revealed: “[The Argentine Tango is] very hot and steamy and obviously it’s really hard to get into the mode of that!
“It’s quite awkward when you’re in rehearsals. It’s like ‘this is weird’. But we both said we need to do one where we fully go for it, and we commit to that passion and that emotion.
“So we went for it – and it was quite intense – and my husband Marcel was there watching and at the end of the dance he went ‘hmmm… More!’. I was like ‘What? Are you sure?!’. He said, ‘you need to commit to this and you need to give it 100%’.”
The Graham Norton Show airs Fridays at 10.40pm on BBC One and is also available on BBC iPlayer.
Strictly Come Dancing returns on Saturday night at 6.30pm on BBC One.