BBC Strictly's Tess Daly helped by Claudia Winkleman as she reveals backstage struggle
Strictly Come Dancing presenter Claudia Winkleman opened up about how she came to Tess Daly's aid as her co-host struggled behind the scenes.
Tess Daly and Claudia Winkleman have hosted Strictly Come Dancing together since 2014 and have formed a close friendship, even describing each other as “sisters”. It seems their bond goes even deeper as Tess says she “can’t cope” without Claudia’s help with one particular thing.
Appearing on the Spooning with Mark Wogan podcast, Claudia revealed: “My favourite game is trying to persuade Tess that pineapple doesn’t belong on a pizza, so we always end every show lying on her floor. I have to take out her contact lens because I love her and she only wears it for Strictly and she doesn’t want to take it out.
“Only one eye works, I only wear one too, it happens.” Back in 2022, Tess discussed the ritual on Claudia’s BBC Radio 2 show.
Tess said: “I can't do it myself and I'm forever wrestling and making my eyeball red raw and there's only one person in this entire world who is able to remove it for me, and it's my sister - it's you!
“You have this sort of weird talent for just doing it in one swift movement, you don't hesitate, you're straight in, and it's off. And I can't cope without you doing that because I can't do it on my own and I go home and have to sleep in it."
Claudia and Tess have been co-presenting Strictly together since 2014, and will soon mark ten years together as their anniversary as a TV duo approaches. But neither of them is shy about telling the world they have a firm friendship. Elaborating further to Express.co.uk, Tess previously explained that presenting the show with her no longer feels like work, as it's instead "an extension of our friendship".
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"It always felt natural and right [to work with her] and, when you genuinely get on with someone, it is a joy to stand next to them on the floor!" she exclaimed.
She also opened up on the one song that never fails to get the pair out on the dancefloor together - Calvin Harris and Rihanna's smash hit We Found Love.
"When we had no audiences in the studio, we would play it between shows to lift the energy in the studio and me and Claudia would dance around like no one was watching," she told the Is It Just Me? podcast.
Meanwhile, Claudia opened up on another moment when no one was present, but this time in the early days of her career, while speaking on Mark Wogan's podcast.
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She revealed that when she first started doing TV shows in the 1990s, it was a "hotchpotch of madness".
Of one show, she recalled: "At one point I said, 'Let's open the phonelines' and it cut to a shot of somebody at reception having a sleep! Nobody phoned!"
Claudia also reminisced on her early days studying History of Art at Cambridge University, and joked: "I'm not intelligent! It was a fluke!"
She admitted she might have ended up working at a gallery, but instead became a fashion assistant, before transitioning into live TV.
She was most memorable during the 1990s for her appearances on the BBC show Holiday, where she was a travel reviewer for the channel.
Claudia appears on tonight's season finale of The Traitors, at 9pm on BBC One, while her podcast with Mark Wogan can be found here.