Ruth Langsford felt like her "legs belonged to someone else" when she was waiting for her slot on ‘Strictly Come Dancing’.
The ‘This Morning’ presenter made her debut on the BBC One latin and ballroom show on Saturday evening (23.09.17) but she admits her nerves got the better of her.
Speaking about her first night nerves, she said: "It’s like your legs belong to someone else … I ran into Michael Ball and he said welldone. And I told him, the terror, the nerves just completely got the better of me. And he said, you’ll never have first night on ‘Strictly’ nerves again."
However, her professional partner Anton Du Beke insists Ruth is over the worst of it now.
He said: "Having done last Saturday night, that’s the biggest thing from the show going forward. There’s nothing like the nerves you get on ‘Strictly Come Dancing’.
"You think you’ve been nervous before – you think, oh in my life, I’ve been nervous – I promise you, sat on that sofa and when they go ‘dancing the waltz, Ruth Langsford’, she turned to me and went, ‘Who’s that?’ I was like, ‘It’s us!’
"There’s nothing quite like it but now you’ve done it, you can take it forward to next week … Unless you’ve experienced it, you don’t know how to deal with it and now you’ve experienced it, you’ll be fine next week."
Having been on the show for 14 years, Anton is used to seeing how different celebrities deal with the build up to their performance and was able to assure Ruth that her feelings were completely normal.
Speaking on ITV’s Loose Women on Tuesday (26.09.17), he shared: "It depends on who your celebrity partner is. Some people like to go first and get it out the way.
"Some people like to watch a bit and it gets them going. It’s always perfect position if you dance well. If you go earlier badly, then you have to sit through the whole of the show and think about it."