I’m in a relegation battle but I don’t want to leave yet… I need to lose more weight, says Strictly’s Paul Merson
IN an optimistic bid to add TV’s Glitterball to his trophy collection, Paul Merson is approaching Strictly like football – and he isn’t ready for an early bath.
The former England, Arsenal and Aston Villa star says he is getting match-fit for the gruelling routines on the BBC One dance contest, and has already shed almost 2st.
And though Paul, 56, is regularly at the bottom of the show’s scoreboard, he insists he is fighting back as if he were playing for a team that was dangerously low in the league.
He said: “I’m 100 per cent in a relegation battle because the standards on this year’s show are through the roof. Some of the other dancers are just amazing.
“And now Toyah Willcox has gone, it will be hard for me and I am up against it. But I don’t look that far ahead. I live in the moment.
“I’m used to just putting my boots on and getting the job done. I won’t be big-headed but that was my job — I was good at football.”
Three-times-married Paul, who has eight children, faced Toyah in the dance-off — and got all four judges to vote to keep him in.
He said: “It was heads or tails, but in the end I won quite easily. I did — I won four-nil!”
Even so, he is realistic about his slim chances of winning, particularly since his odds are currently 100/1, compared to the favourite, comic Chris McCausland, at 4/6.
Really proud
But simply discovering he can dance was a revelation in itself, and he said: “That surprised me immensely. Honestly, I wasn’t exaggerating when I said I’d danced three times — once at each of my three weddings.
“I’ve improved a hundredfold. But that’s the whole idea of the show — people come on who have got two left feet and they try to get better and better.
“Also, my aim was to get well under 14st before I went out of Strictly, and I’m 14st right now — I haven’t been that light for 20 years.
“So when I was in the dance-off I was like, ‘I’m 14st 3lb — I need to stay!’ So it’s not about staying in to win, I just want to lose more weight.
“If I work hard this week I should get under 14st.”
Inevitably there has been lots of chatter among footballing peers about him taking part in the show.
Paul said: “Everybody I’ve talked to has gone, ‘Fair play to you’. [Strictly 2022 contestant] Tony Adams said, ‘Don’t do it’, but he loves it really.
“Jermain Defoe was asking me about it and I said, ‘If I was you, do it’. I wouldn’t tell anybody not to do this. It has been an amazing experience so far.”
And continuing the football references, he said of his Strictly pro partner Karen Hauer: “She’s amazing. I call her [Man City manager] Pep Guardiola. She gets me. The dances I do are sensible for my body.
“If she puts something in the choreography and I can’t get it, we just move on and do something else.
I’m used to just putting my boots on and getting the job done. I won’t be big-headed but that was my job — I was good at football
“I’ve enjoyed every minute of it, it’s been great. I turn up for training smiling, I leave smiling. It’s been an amazing experience.”
Karen added: “It’s already massive, what he’s doing — putting himself out there like this and being a complete novice in everything. The past couple of weeks have been awesome.”
For Paul, there is a serious reason for wanting to be on Strictly that extends beyond bagging another trophy or getting fit again.
Once one of the highest earners in football, he is a well-known former gambler who splurged £7million and racked up huge debts through his addiction before eventually cleaning up his act.
He said: “One of the big bonuses of doing Strictly is that for all those people out there struggling with addiction, I am showing them that you can do it and that there is a life beyond the struggles.
“That’s what I’ve done. Because addiction withdraws you from everybody. It wants you on your own.
“It wants to destroy you. What I’m doing now just shows you how well I am in myself.”
There is no understating how much Paul, a Sky Sports pundit, has turned his life around.
At his lowest point in the Nineties, he even considered breaking his own fingers to stop himself ringing his bookie to bet.
His habit was accompanied by huge amounts of booze and drugs, and in 1994, at the height of his career, he publicly revealed his addictions.
In 2003, when he was 35, the desperate star cashed in his £800,000 pension pot to go on a gambling frenzy.
My aim was to get well under 14st before I went out of Strictly, and I’m 14st right now — I haven’t been that light for 20 years
He blamed substance abuse for fuelling his gambling, which was often on horse and dog racing.
Different life
But it sometimes saw him place bizarre bets, including £10,000 on the Eurovision Song Contest and £5,000 on a televised bowls match.
When his first wife Lorraine, with whom he had three sons, discovered he had blown £10,000 betting on a snooker match, she divorced him.
His second marriage, to Louise Bache, produced twin girls but in 2013 it also failed, amid his gambling addiction. Now Paul is happily wed to third wife Kate, with whom he has had three more children.
So for many people struggling with addiction, he is a huge role model — and he knows that responsibility is even greater now he is on Strictly.
The sequins and the glitter, that’s the bit I find really hard — but I can only blame myself for looking like a bit of a fool
Paul said: “I meet people who are struggling. They go, ‘How are you doing it?’ and I say, ‘By getting well’.
“When people see me better and doing something like Strictly, it has a knock-on effect. There’s light at the end of the tunnel for people like me.
“I struggled to get up on that dance floor. But we’re ill people who need to get well. We’re not bad people who need to get good.”
Paul revealed Kate is concerned about what the next chapter in their life holds, post-Strictly. He said: “Our life has completely changed. She said it’s different at home now because all the kids have started school.
“She’s a bit worried about when I leave this competition because it’s a different life now and I’m not used to it. I like to keep on doing stuff, I don’t like sitting around. But, you know, this isn’t community service.
“I don’t have to do this, I want to do it. It’s my choice, so enjoy it. My experience has been great.
“I don’t worry about things that are out of my hands. It was a bit like when we were in the dance-off. I just said to Karen, ‘What do we do now?’
“But what will be, will be. I’ll just go out there and enjoy myself.
“The sequins and the glitter, that’s the bit I find really hard — but I can only blame myself for looking like a bit of a fool.”
- Strictly is on BBC One today at 6.25pm.
WILL ROW SEE WYNNE LOSE?
THE odds of Wynne Evans and Katya Jones getting booted off the show have been slashed by some bookies following the Gropegate backlash this week.
One bookmaker, Grosvenor Sport, has cut its odds of the couple leaving from 20/1 to 4/1 – despite the fact that they have regularly ended up near the top of the scoreboard.
The duo were slated online after opera singer Wynne was seen on last Saturday’s Strictly sliding his hand across Katya’s stomach, only to have her remove it.
They are now third favourites to go, behind Paul Merson and partner Karen Hauer in top spot, then Punam Krishan and Gorka Marquez.
SINGER Sophie Ellis-Bextor will be centre stage in the Strictly studio again tonight – but her performance won’t air until tomorrow night on the pre-recorded results show.
She was one of the contestants on Strictly in 2013 when she was partnered with Brendan Cole and finished fourth in the competition.
Sophie, 45, will sing new single Freedom Of The Night – which might surprise quite a few fans who would say a better option would be her best-known track, Murder On The Dancefloor.