Bill Bailey has spoken out about the impact critical remarks had on him during his time on Strictly Come Dancing, when some people expected he would be a ‘novelty’ act.
At the height of the Covid-19 epidemic in 2020, the comedian appeared on the BBC show with his professional dancing partner, Oti Mabuse, 32.
After constantly performing well throughout the competition, the 58-year-old surged to victory with his companion, capturing the coveted Glitterball Trophy and defeating fellow celebrity contestants HRVY, Jamie Laing, and Maisie Smith in the grand finale.
Some first felt that he would be a ‘comedy’ act on the programme, rather than having any hope of making it all the way through the competition.
Bill said in a new interview that he eventually agreed to participate after being solicited for years.
Having had ‘zero’ dance experience in the past, the comic admitted to The Times that he would describe his form of dancing at parties as ‘flailing’, adding that perhaps it ‘helped’ that he was ‘uninhibited’.
While he didn’t expect to win, Bill was irritated by the notion that he wouldn’t have a chance and was only there for laughs.
‘I was slightly riled by that. There were lots of very unflattering pieces in papers and magazines, and “Oh Bill, this’ll be fun, he’ll be out in week one or two, he’ll be the novelty one”, or I’ll be the comedy one where they dress up as various figures, like animals, a stoat or a weasel or something, and get fired out of a cannon dressed as a badger,’ he said.
Despite their disputes, the performer stressed how well he and Oti worked together.
‘You think on the face of it we’d have not much in common. You know, we’re different ages, different generations, different upbringings, countries, languages,’ he stated.
‘But what we found we had in common was we have this kind of mutual respect for hard work. I said: “I’m quite competitive. I don’t want to give a poor account of myself. If I leave the show, it won’t be because I haven’t practised, it’ll be because I’m no good at it, but I’m going to give it my all.” She took that as a challenge.’
Bill admitted that they ‘never really celebrated afterwards’ after his Strictly final because lockdown was still in effect at the time.
Talking in November 2021, he said: ‘I’ve got to say, it was a little bit of a kind-of anti-climax afterwards because we did a final, it’s like big pressure and all the rest of it.’
Strictly Come Dancing returns to BBC One and BBC iPlayer later this year.
Source My Celebrity Life.
