28 October 2023 , 17:05
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At the age of 78, Angela Rippon stunned the audience when she seamlessly kicked her leg into a standing split during her first Strictly Come Dancing performance.
As the show’s oldest ever contestant, Angela proved she is just as capable as she was nearly 50 years ago in her famous appearance in Morecambe and Wise’s 1976 Christmas episode - where the BBC newsreader appeared from behind her news desk with a stunning high kick before breaking into a dance routine. But while the 78-year-old has plenty of dazzling and joyous stories to tell, she has also faced heartbreak and loss in her life.
By the late 80s, Angela Rippon had become a beloved household name - having presented and hosted everything from BBC News and Princess Diana and Charles’ wedding coverage to the Eurovision Song Contest and various game shows. But behind the scenes, all was not well. In 1989, Angela separated from her childhood sweetheart, Christopher Dare, in a breakup so painful she kept it secret.
The couple married in 1967, just one year after Angela’s career started, at the age of 22. She had reportedly met Christopher at a YMCA dance and lived out their married life in a picturesque cottage on the edge of the moorlands at Dartmoor. But in 1898, they decided to part ways in what Anglea revealed was a very “stressful” period in her life.
Angela and her husband Christopher in 1979 (Mirrorpix)She didn’t publicly announce they had split for more than a year - by which point, Christopher was already living with a fellow divorcee, Judy. Speaking at the age of 60 in an interview with , Angela said: "It was a stress, of course it was. It was a very stressful period for all sorts of reasons. My immediate feeling was, 'Oh God, I've failed at this'.”
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While it was painful to begin with, Angela said everything worked out for a reason, adding: “In fact, he and I are still good friends. I talk to him on the phone a couple of times a month. We email each other. He lives in Spain now with his partner, Judy. We exchange cards at birthdays and Christmas. Judy kind of updates me on what they're doing with their home down in Spain. It's a good relationship for all of us."
Following her divorce, Angela has always kept a tight-lip on her relationships since. While she admitted she’d had long-term relationships since, she had always kept them “private”, explaining: "I was married for 25 years and when we were parting, Christopher told me, 'I got fed up of people coming to our house all the time'. It made me realise that when you do a job that's public-facing, you have to respect the privacy of your partner. Hardly anybody – beyond my very close circle of friends – would know who my partners have been over the past several years."
More recently, in 2015, Angela said she was very happy being single, telling the MailOnline: "I've discovered I'm very happy being single. I suppose, if I'm honest, when your heart is broken it's painful and I don't want to go there again.” While Angela doesn’t have children herself, she said she has a godson and two honorary goddaughters who she is very close to.
Last Saturday, Angela’s Cha Cha Cha on Strictly with partner Kai Widdrington saw them achieve 28 out of the judge’s 40 points, dancing to Pink’s Get The Party Started.