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Helen Skelton has opened up about the humiliation she felt during the public breakdown of her marriage to her ex-husband Richie Myler.
The TV presenter, 42, said her mantra is to 'get up and get on with it' and she couldn't bear the 'patronising looks' she would get following their split.
Helen's antidote to the ordeal was to put herself on prime time television as one of the celebrity contestants on Strictly, just seven months after Richie left her.
Before her stint on the BBC dance show, Helen said she was dealing with gossip in her 'tiny community', telling the Times: 'It felt humiliating to me because of where I'm from. I didn't enjoy walking down the street and people knowing stuff about my past.'
Helen said that her dairy farmer father Richard would hear talk about her in his local golf club and 'Susan from the meat counter at Sainsbury's' would ask her about her romantic life when she came in to do her food shop.
However, her second-place finish on Strictly was deemed a complete triumph as she showed the public, and Richie, that she was just fine without him.
Helen Skelton has opened up about the humiliation she felt during the public breakdown of her marriage to her ex-husband Richie Myler
One of the mother-of-three's most memorable dances during the series was a Couple's Choice routine to Mein Herr from Cabaret, which was referred to as her 'revenge dance' at the time.
Reflecting on the momentous performance, she said: 'It struck a chord, one of the dancers said, "You did that for all of us, didn't you?" I wanted to have my own narrative. I was sick of the patronising looks, the "Ooh, how are you?" I didn't have the capacity to say, "I'm brilliant, how are you?" That's what the dance did.'
During the routine, Helen mouthed Cabaret star Sally Bowles' iconic line 'you're better off without me' as a 'metaphorical "f*** you"', to anyone who had doubted her.
Since her time on Strictly, Helen left her Sunday show on BBC Radio 5 Live in 2023 to spend more time with her three children at the weekend, saying the 'juggle is real'.
After this, she became a regular co-presenter on Morning Live in 2023, joining the BBC's weekday morning programme and becoming one of its main presenting faces.
Helen and her co-host Gethin Jones have been at the centre of ongoing rumours about whether they are seeing each other behind the scenes.
But finally setting the record straight, Helen said: 'It's wild. I've had my best friend congratulate me on our engagement. We're not [together]. We work together; he's one of my best friends.'
She's also said she's not on dating apps. 'I couldn't think of anything worse, although my dad keeps saying I'm on Tinder when he means Vinted.'
When Helen and Gethin appeared on the red carpet together for ITV's Pride of Britain event in October 2025, and a month later at a glitzy Royal Television Society bash in Manchester, it sent even their co-stars into meltdown.
Helen and Richie pictured together. The couple were married for nine years and divorced in 2022
Helen and her co-host Gethin Jones have been at the centre of ongoing rumours about whether they are seeing each other behind the scenes
Their commonalities are instantly obvious – both former presenters of Blue Peter, they've both taken part in Strictly, and have that clean-cut attractiveness of all former children's TV presenters.
When they were seen in June at a spa close to Gethin's home in Cheshire – some 110 miles from where Helen lives in Cumbria – the rumour mill kept on churning.
Neither did anything to stop the speculation. No denials were issued, either publicly from them, or privately from their representatives, despite several approaches from this newspaper, until now.
When asked about their budding romance, Helen told Prima Magazine in December that the pair are so close they often 'forget' they're on the air and are 'such good mates' it can become 'tricky' when they're filming the BBC One show, alongside Michelle Ackerley.
'I've been friends with Michelle and Gethin for 25 years. Geth was on Blue Peter before me, so we've always crossed paths, and Michelle and I were flatmates when we lived in London,' she said.
'We just work together, we are not together. No, no, no. We are just work friends. They printed pictures of us at work and that we're together because we are at work together,' Helen told The Mirror
Helen and Gethin have been anchoring Morning Live full-time since its relaunch in January 2024, which came some three years after the programme was originally set up by BBC bosses to rival ITV's This Morning.
Both were instantly popular with viewers, and their bouncy onscreen presence left ITV bosses cross with themselves for not finding Helen a show.
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