Len Goodman stopped dancing at public events because so many men wanted him to dance with their wives.

Len Goodman

Len Goodman

The former 'Strictly Come Dancing' head judge has revealed how whenever he and his wife Sue would dance together, men would always ask him to dance with their partners, and he stopped dancing in the end because otherwise it "opens the floodgates".

He told the Daily Mirror newspaper: "If I'm at a dinner dance and get up with my wife, men come up and say, 'Will you dance with my wife? She would love it.'

"But if I dance with one that opens the floodgates."

Meanwhile, the 75-year-old ballroom dancer opened up about his marriage to first wife and former dance partner Cherry - whom he was with between 1972 and 1987 - and how their relationship didn't last because they only had dancing in common.

He said: "I ended up marrying my dance partner.

"But once we finished dancing we realised that I looked across at her and she looked at me, and the only common link was dancing, and once we'd stopped that we couldn't understand why we were together."

Len - who left BBC One's 'Strictly' after 12 years in 2016, and was replaced by Shirley Ballas in the role as head judge - revealed how it was a doctor who suggested he should take up dancing after he broke his foot, and it ended up being the one thing he felt he was "good at".

The 'Partners in Rhyme' host recalled: "When I was 20, I broke my foot playing five-a-side. "The doctor recommended ballroom dancing as a way of recuperating.

"Ballroom dancing was great for me; it was the first thing I found that I was good at."


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