Scarlett Moffatt has defended her previous dancing expertise earlier than showing within the Strictly Come Dancing Christmas particular.
Final month, the star-studded line-up for this yr’s festive episode was confirmed – with the Gogglebox star additionally competing with Westlife’s Brian McFadden, comic Babatunde Aléshé, EastEnders actor Nicholas Bailey, Gladiator Jodie Ounsley and All Saints singer Melanie Blatt.
Scarlett, 35, first appeared as a banking critic on the Channel 4 present in 2014 and has since received I am A Movie star…Get Me Out Of Right here! and current on Saturday Night time Takeaway.
When her casting for Strictly was revealed, Scarlett defined that the collection had ‘all the time had a particular place in my coronary heart’.
‘Being a part of the Christmas particular feels really magical. It is the present that brings everybody collectively across the TV and being a part of that could be a actual private and profession spotlight,” she mentioned.
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‘I am certain this may even introduce me to some muscle groups I did not know I had. I can not wait to dwell my greatest life on that dance flooring.’
Nevertheless, some critics have been fast to query Scarlett’s earlier dancing expertise – as she had competed in competitions as a baby and had additionally met Strictly choose Anton Du Beke.
However forward of tomorrow’s episode, Scarlett has insisted she would not have an unfair benefit.
“I really feel like they actually hyped me up,” she advised The Solar when requested about those that questioned her participation.
‘I really like dancing, however that was after I was slightly woman, I am 35 now.
“I did dance, however it’s been so lengthy.”
Scarlett then defined that she was taking courses for Previous Time and Sequence, which has similarities to ballroom and Latin.
When Strictly began when she was 13, Scarlett remembers considering it was the ‘coolest factor ever’ and began following the judges and dancers on-line.
“Anton and Erin did a present and on the finish of the present they taught folks tips on how to do a little bit of foxtrot or a little bit of waltz. “I went there after I was eight and Anton signed a bit of paper that I nonetheless have,” she mentioned on the time.
‘That in some way translated into the truth that I used to be educated by Anton. By some means that obtained twisted and I used to be professionally educated by Anton. It is so humorous although, man. Makes you chortle, would not it? I simply hope folks do not anticipate an excessive amount of, you realize what I imply?
‘However what I wish to say is that I’ll give it 110%. I am so excited to get on the dance flooring and dance.”
Final yr, Scarlett returned to aggressive ballroom dancing for the primary time in 15 years. She and dance accomplice Craig Andrew competed on the Winter Gardens in Blackpool, profitable two second locations and two third locations.
On the time, the TV star mentioned she had “by no means been so nervous, however so happy with myself” after taking over her childhood passion once more.
Nevertheless, earlier this week Scarlett admitted that her dancing expertise would forestall her from ever showing on the primary collection of Strictly.
“I do know I’ll in all probability by no means have the ability to dance on the primary collection of Strictly due to my previous dancing expertise after I was slightly woman, so being a part of the Christmas particular means the world to me,” she posted on Instagram alongside clips of her dancing as a baby and coaching for Strictly.
‘College wasn’t all the time simple for me, however dance was my protected place. It is the place I discovered my folks, the place I felt happiest, and the place I might simply be myself.
‘Dancing to the Strictly Christmas Particular on Christmas Day seems like an actual bucket record second; a kind of needs you silently make and by no means actually anticipate to return true.”
She added: ‘I am so grateful to have the ability to share this second with my household, my buddies, Vito and everybody watching at house, and this may ceaselessly be probably the most lovely days of my whole life ✨🎄
She dances with Vito Coppola on the Strictly particular.
Forward of the episode airing, Scarlett mentioned it was “liberating” to get again on the dance flooring. “Clearly in my dancing days, after I was a teen, you’ve got a distinct form, a distinct dimension and a distinct quantity of vitality. So coming again after having a child and being 35, I feel that is the wonderful thing about Strictly Come Dancing, that it would not matter what background you come from, or your dancing background, or your age or dimension or form or no matter,” she mentioned.
“It simply encourages the love of dance and the way a lot pleasure it may possibly deliver to folks and it permits you to categorical your self and I feel that is why I adore it a lot.”
When her involvement in It Takes Two was introduced, Scarlett advised host Janette Manrara that she “retains crying on a regular basis.”
‘I can say it out loud! I am so excited,” she mentioned, including that taking part was a “dream” and on the prime of her bucket record.
The Strictly Come Dancing Christmas particular airs tomorrow at 5.30pm on BBC One.
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