Kaye Adams was the first celebrity to be eliminated from Strictly Come Dancing in 2022, after finding herself in the dance-off against Ade Adepitan and his partner Oti Mabuse
Loose Women’s Kaye Adams, who was the first to be eliminated from Strictly Come Dancing two years ago, has confessed that her experience on the show has deterred her from participating in similar programmes in the future.
Reflecting on her time on the dance floor, she said:
“I just don’t know if I’m desperate to be judged again in that way,” and added, “You could go in the jungle, you could try your level best, do everything, but you’re voted out first for whatever reason and you just feel like a loser. I don’t think I need that in my life.”
Kaye joined the Strictly line-up in 2022, partnered with Kai Widdrington. The BBC1 show has recently been embroiled in controversy over allegations of bullying and abusive behaviour.
However, while Kaye admits her Strictly stint was tough, she attributes it to her own naivety rather than blaming the show or her dance partner Kai.
“Kai was an absolute gentleman from start to finish. I was so pleased to be paired with him and I couldn’t have asked any more of him,” she stated emphatically, reports the Mirror.
She concluded by saying, “I met some wonderful people on Strictly. That was the joy of it. But it is a tough show, which is very difficult for viewers to understand, because of course it just looks like the most enormous fun and sparkles and glitter.”
“It is all of that, but emotionally you do have to put yourself on the line. That’s nobody’s fault, but that’s what it requires. Some people sail through that and respond to it in the most positive way and for other people it can be a bit destabilising. I found it a bit destabilising. But that’s me, that’s not the show or the way I was treated.”
During her time on the show, Kaye danced a Tango and a Charleston, sharing hopes that Strictly would transform her into someone eager to dance at weddings. Yet, she admits that transformation never came to pass.
“I haven’t undergone some amazing transformation I’m still the same old klutz that I was ten, twenty or thirty years ago,” she says with a chuckle. Kaye realized through her Strictly experience that her reticence about dancing publicly was a personal trait rather than something the show could change.
“In retrospect, it was probably naive to think that you would go on a television show, where you are exposed to a massive audience, and suddenly you would turn into a different personality. That was a ridiculous idea and so it proved to be, but I’m not in therapy, it’s all good! “.
Despite her experience, Kaye isn’t put off from reality TV altogether; she’s keen on one particular programme. “Celebrity Race Across the World is great,” she gushes.
Kaye appreciates that theres no voting involvedeither you lose or you dontand she’s up for the challenge, especially if it means teaming up with her offspring.
“Especially if I could do it with one of my kids, because I think I’d win. Well, they would win and I would just go along for the ride! “.
Kaye, 61, resides in Glasgow with her tennis coach partner Ian and their two daughters, Charly, 22, and Bonnie, 17. She is a daily host on BBC Radio Scotland and runs her own successful podcast How to be 60.
However, she is most recognised as one of the main presenters on ITV’s lunchtime chat show Loose Women.
Loose Women will celebrate its 25th anniversary next month, and Kaye has been a part of it since its inception, having hosted the very first show in 1999. At the age of 36, she was told the job would only last a month and confesses she never anticipated it would continue for so long.
“God no,” she exclaims. “It was a very untested format so, it’s four women. Right ok, what do we do? Well, you just sit and talk for an hour. We were thinking: ‘really? well, what do we talk about? ‘”.
“It just felt very woolly, so I certainly wasn’t putting any great store by it and we had absolutely no notion of how it would go down with the audience we were completely aware that it might just divebomb.”
Over the years, the show has garnered numerous awards and received a prestigious BAFTA nomination earlier this year. There have been rumours of backstage disputes among the presenters, but Kaye insists these incidents have been greatly exaggerated.
“Whether somebody works in an office or a factory and there’s a bunch of work colleagues, you will see a very similar relationship dynamic as the one that exists at Loose Women,” she clarifies.
“There are the ones that you click with, that you’re desperate to go for coffee with and there are the ones that you smile at and you think are nice, but you’re not that close. There’s absolutely no difference.”
“Loose Women has been an enormously positive influence on my life, and I’ve made some great friendships Nadia (Sawalha) and Jane (Moore) are both good friends, who I see outside of the show.”
The Loose Women panellists are famous for their no-holds-barred approach, speaking their truth even if they sometimes rue their words later. Kaye Adams, while often cautious with her speech, did admit one particular early blunder.
“I found the early days of motherhood really quite difficult and I obviously shared that on the programme,” she reflected.
“These things tend to get picked up and then exist on the internet forever, so when Charly was younger, she must have discovered them and she said: ‘did you really hate motherhood? ‘”.
“I felt awful. We discussed it and I explained that wasn’t the case, but it was a little bit of a reminder that you have to be careful.”
When she’s not sparking debates on Loose Women, Kaye embraces her passion project, the How to be 60 podcast, where she dives into candid conversations with celebrities about the milestone age.
“It’s a handmade, low-budget production, recorded in this little attic in my house, but it’s very personal to me,” she beams.
“Society talks a lot now about midlife and menopause and I think that is fantastic, but I think once you become post-menopausal and into your late 50s, you go into the wilderness a little bit in terms of the public conversation.”
“There are a lot of people, both men and women, who actually are getting to that stage of life and thinking they’ve got an awful lot of living to do. They want to get reward and value out of these years and not just drift into the horizon and I’m really happy to be part of that conversation.”
Reflecting on her own future and the concept of retirement, Kaye remarked with honesty: “If my life isn’t as busy, I wonder if it will all feel a bit aimless,” before admitting she has already started considering options to fill her time. “I’m not at that stage at the moment, but I can see that might come, so I am already planning what to do, what activities I might take up and what new friends I might make, whether they like it or not! “.
She shared personal insights into her life with partner Ian, revealing his passion for tennis and their musings over a potential move to Spain for the winter months. “My partner Ian lives and breathes tennis and he would live in Spain at least for the winter. It would be a huge thing and I am kind of set in my ways, but it’s starting to make me think could we do that, should we do that?”.
Kaye concluded with thoughts about embracing new opportunities, suggesting a crossroads where one might either continue as is or embrace change. “Possibilities come up and you either just keep your head down and plough on, or you say: ‘this is an opportunity to do things that I’ve never done before and switch things up a little bit.’”.
Kaye Adams, a familiar face on Loose Women for 25 years, has spoken about her changing perspective on ambition and competition. “I’m not as competitive as I was. People laugh when I say this, but I have mellowed!” she reveals with a smile.
She further reflects on her extensive career in television, saying, “It’s not that I’ve completely given up the ghost. But having worked in television for as long as I have, I have come to realise that the most talented, successful and popular people in the world of entertainment aren’t necessarily the people that I would want to spend an evening with. Over time it’s sunk in that being the top of the tree in this very artificial world, doesn’t actually mean that much.”
Listeners can tune into Kaye Adams’ insights on life and more in her podcast, ‘Kaye Adams: How to be 60’, available across all podcast platforms.
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Source: Los Angeles Times (edited)
