Miles Nazaire puts biggest obsession aside to go for Dancing on Ice win
Their saucy routines have been raising eyebrows and the chemistry between them is so hot, it’s a wonder it hasn’t melted the ice.
Dancing On Ice ’s Miles Nazaire has even claimed to make his pro partner Vanessa Bauer “giddy”. So to hear he has found a new love during the hard months of training, might not seem too surprising. But it’s not with Vanessa… it’s with himself.
For Made In Chelsea star Miles is not the Gen Z devil-may-care reality star his previous career path might have led you to believe. He signed up for the ITV show having been diagnosed with muscle dysmorphia last year - a mental disorder where the sufferer becomes obsessed with needing to work out because of their skewed vision of their own body.
But since joining the show, the hard hours of training have forced Miles to cut down his destructive old habits. He hasn’t been to the gym for a whole month - unheard of for him. More importantly, he’s also lost 1st 8lb of body mass, yet is learning to appreciate his new leaner look in a way he previously feared impossible.
It’s Vanessa, 27, who’s to thank for helping him with his mental health. And speaking ahead of Sunday's show, Made In Chelsea star Miles insists their minds are focused on one shared goal –winning. Miles, 28, says: “She’s the perfect partner because we both want to win, we want to compete really well and we want to prove that a Chelsea boy can actually put in the work and perform,” he says. “100% she’s whipping me into shape though!”
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Of course, that has had its side effects. “I’ve lost nearly 10 kilos (1st 8lbs) of weight since training,” he admits. “The mix of me not drinking for the last eight months and now training this much in such a different way [from the gym] has seen me lose a lot of weight.
The hard hours of training have forced Miles to cut down his destructive old habits (Getty Images)
Miles and Vanessa Bauer are both desperate to win Dancing on Ice (Kieron McCarron/ITV/REX/Shutterstock)“You have to be more streamlined if you like. A lot of people have said to me actually they prefer my body now because I look a lot more athletic. I’m so proud of what we’re doing with Dancing On Ice, where we are and how we look.” On the surface, all this talk about muscles and weight could sound flippant. But when you suffer from his condition it’s anything but.
Miles hated his body to such an extreme that he was obsessed with the gym, and even left his family on Christmas Day 2022, after feeling compelled to sneak off for a secret 3am training session. He would turn up at restaurants with carefully weighed-out food in Tupperware boxes and could barely stand to look at his own reflection.
It was only when he filmed a documentary for Channel 4 last summer that he was diagnosed. He says: “I kind of knew it, but when you have it confirmed, it is a weird disbelief, and then you feel relieved. Once you understand something that you have, it makes it easier.
“It’s a perfection trap. And perfection that you’ll never attain, because the issue that I’ve realised with muscle dysmorphia is you don’t like the way you look, and you’re so obsessed with the way you look that anything you do doesn’t look right in the mirror. And the biggest thing that helped me come out of it was understanding how your body moves.
He lost nearly 10kg since training started
His main goal is to win the competition“When you sit down, you’re not going to have a six-pack all the time. If you eat a little bit more one night or if you’re stressed, you bloat. You start understanding how the human body works, and when you do that, you’re a bit more relieved. Before, you judge yourself on other people’s socials and pictures.
“So you are thinking, ‘I need to look like that,’ but you’ve got to remember that person took a perfect picture in the morning, dehydrated, probably fine-tuned a little bit, add saturation, put a tan on, they look incredible. Take that filter, whatever it is, away and that helped massively for me.”
The effect of social media on mental health has been immense. But for Miles to be openly appreciative of how he looks on TV is a huge leap forward for him.
The son of a sculptor and an art school founder, Westminster-born Miles graduated from the famous BRIT School in 2014, joining its ranks of alumni including Amy Winehouse, Lily Allen and Adele. He first became known in 2018 after joining E4’s Made In Chelsea, and quickly made a name for himself as a lothario, wooing women and finding himself in the middle of all the drama.
Signing up for shows like Ex On The Beach and Celebs Go Dating didn’t help dispel the reputation for being a ladies’ man. But - despite the onscreen chemistry with Vanessa - Miles is keen to stress he’s definitely not the playboy, fans think. And as for rumours of a romance with his partner? Well, he claims she didn’t even like him that much at the beginning.
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He says there is no chance of romance between them (Kieron McCarron/ITV/REX/Shutterstock)Miles says: “Funny enough, it didn’t click when we met.... I think she maybe wasn’t sure the type of person I was. I get it, I come from reality TV and I think there is unfortunately a very heavy opinion about people like myself in reality TV. I think the first week when she got to see this completely different side of me, she was like, ‘Wow, you’re not what I expected you to be. You’re actually just very kind and goofy and work really hard.’ And I think as soon as I showed that, she was really, really happy. And I connected with her on another level. It took a week to properly get that connection.”
And that ‘connection’ involves deep chats, lots of giggles and just a deep, deep drive to get their hands on....the trophy.
“There’s no chance of romance, no,” insists Miles. “We obviously have a real good giggle and we laugh our heads off. And we’re more stupid than anything else. I think I bring out the giddy side of her, which is nice. [But] There’s no flirtatiousness in it which I really like because otherwise it would’ve taken away from what we’re actually trying to do....win.”
He’s got the right partner for it. Vanessa has a record for getting the most out of her celebs. “She’s a drill sergeant,” Miles jokes. “I’m ready for SAS Who Dares Wins now!” And he’s certainly blazing a trail, impressing the show’s judges - including Olympic legends Jayne Torvill, 66, and Christopher Dean, 65.
Last weekend he was awarded an almost perfect score of 9.5 from the duo for his routine dedicated to his dad, Jacques, and he’s regularly competing for the top of the leaderboard. When it comes to his competition, Miles is clear on who he’s got his eye on - Olympic star Greg Rutherford and former Coronation Street actor Ryan Thomas.
He admits there’s a healthy rivalry between the trio. Miles laughs: “I think it’s great to have a bit of competitiveness. It actually helps us push ourselves even more to be better because I see Greg do these big lifts, or Ryan doing a really cool routine, and I’m like, ‘Okay, cool, I need to up my game here.’ It’s still quite comical for now, but I think as we edge closer to the final, it will change!”
Dancing On Ice is on ITV1 on Sunday at 6.30pm*
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