The BBC's most senior Strictly Come Dancing contestant, Angela Rippon, has been delighting fans with her dance skills and impressive flexibility with partner Kai Widdrington.
Although Angela is celebrated for her illustrious TV career, she has mostly kept her private life away from the limelight.
Angela's life, as fascinating as it is, has been marked by personal challenges, including the end of her marriage to childhood sweetheart Christopher Dare, which was described as a "painful" breakup.
The couple, who were sweethearts from an early age, tied the knot in 1967, just as Angela's career was taking off. Angela was only 22 years old at the time, and she reportedly met Christopher at a YMCA dance.
The couple, who never had children, shared their married life in a charming 17th-century cottage on the outskirts of Dartmoor's moorlands. Unfortunately, their love story did not have a fairy tale ending.
In 1989, they made the difficult decision to part ways, though Angela did not publicly announce their separation for over a year. By then, Christopher was already living with a fellow divorcee named Judy.
Angela, reflecting on that "stressful" period in her life during an interview with Modern & Mature when she was 60, said: “It was a stress, of course it was.It was a very stressful period for all sorts of reasons. My immediate feeling was, 'Oh God, I've failed at this.'
“But in fact, he and I are still good friends. I talk to him on the phone a couple of times a month. We email each other. He lives in Spain now with his partner, Judy. We exchange cards at birthdays and Christmas. Judy kind of updates me on what they're doing with their home down in Spain. It's a good relationship for all of us."
Since then, Angela has chosen to keep her subsequent relationships private, explaining: "I was married for 25 years and when we were parting, Christopher told me, 'I got fed up of people coming to our house all the time'.
“It made me realise that when you do a job that's public-facing, you have to respect the privacy of your partner. Hardly anybody – beyond my very close circle of friends – would know who my partners have been over the past several years."
The 78 year old television icon has been a household name since the start of her television career in 1966 at BBC South West.
Angela's extensive work spans a wide range of shows, from serious news programmes to hosting the 1977 Eurovision Song Contest and co-presenting the BBC's coverage of the wedding of Prince Charles and Princess Diana.
Angela also hosted the original version of Strictly, and now she's returned as a contestant, vying for the coveted Glitterball Trophy.
In her debut performance, she danced to Shirley Bassey's rendition of Pink's Get The Party Started, earning herself and her partner Kai an impressive 28 out of 40 points.
Source: Read Full Article
