Kaye Adams opens up about Strictly Come Dancing 'shame'
TV presenter Kaye Adams revealed she still struggles with the "shame" and "anxiety" of being the first contestant voted off Strictly Come Dancing in 2022.
Kaye Adams locked herself away for "24 hours" after being voted off Strictly Come Dancing first in 2022.
The TV presenter avoids watching the BBC Latin and Ballroom dance show because it triggers feelings of being a "failure" after the public were not impressed with her and 30-year-old professional dance partner Kai Widdrington's Charleston to Music! Music! Music!.
Kaye, 62, recalled to TV personality Coleen Nolan on the latest episode of the Loose Women: Just Between Us podcast: "I still can't watch it.
"People wouldn't remember I was on it for like the blink of an eye, not even a sashay. Voted off first, which I'm now having to say to own it, to sort of process the shame. I still feel bad about it.
"I can feel myself getting slightly anxious, even talking about it. I'm trying to be brave and jokey, but it killed me."
Coleen, 60, chimed in: "But is that because you were loving it, and you wanted to stay in, or the fact you got voted off first, so you felt, 'Oh, people don't like me?'"
Kaye - who has "tried to own" being the first celebrity to be eliminated from Strictly Come Dancing in 2022 - responded: "I just felt like ... I was going to use a bad word there. I felt really awful - think of the bad word I would have used. I was gutted by it.
"I remember that night, I went back to the hotel - this hotel that becomes Strictly central - and I did not come out of that room or open the curtains for 24 hours. I've never done that in my life.
"And I've had lots of knocks, lots of failures. It felt like such a failure. I was embarrassed."
Despite Kaye's partner, tennis coach Ian Campbell, and their daughters Charley, 23, and Bonnie, 18, having rallied around the star as she struggled with the pain of being voted out first, Kaye initially dreaded showing her face in public following the elimination.
She explained: "People would casually say, 'Oh, how are you getting on?' And I thought, 'Oh my God.' I just did not want to leave the house. I just didn't want to go out. I dreaded the first Loose Women after it. I would have seen it far enough."
Kaye - who would "find it difficult" to do other reality TV shows in which she would be judged - admitted putting herself out of her comfort zone by doing Strictly Come Dancing was "torture".
But, the Loose Women panellist does not regret doing the programme because of making friendships with her co-stars, including TV host Helen Skelton, 42, and wildlife presenter Hamza Yassin, 35, who won that series of Strictly Come Dancing.
Kaye added: "And to be part of something as huge as that was a privilege."
