Comedy legend Lenny Henry has revealed he has repeatedly turned down the advances of the Strictly Come Dancing bosses.
The Comic Relief star admitted he has long been on their radar for the hit BBC show. However, he admits he doesn't see himself as a dancer. The confession comes as he is set to appear in a flashback role on Netflix's Missing You.
In it, Lenny takes on the role of a man who was mysteriously murdered over 10 years earlier. His on-screen daughter, played by Rosalind Eleazar looks into his death after her fiance also goes missing. Speaking of the flashback scenes which see Lenny's character enjoy a dance, he laughed: "There is a legendary dancing scene in which I can't dance at all."
He then confessed: "They keep asking me to be on Strictly, but I’d literally let every black person in Britain down." Lenny revealed the cast also made the crew take part in the dance. He admitted they didn't want to, but said it was "a lot of fun".
The admission comes just days after Chris McCausland and Dianne Buswell were crowned this series' Strictly winners and lifted the coveted Glitter Ball trophy. Despite being victorious, fans will be disappointed by Chris' decision not to join the live arena tours for the show. Instead, he is continuing his own tour, which he had postponed due to his efforts in the contest.
Taking to to Twitter/X, the star recently responded to a fan's question about whether he will be joining the cast on the live tour, which has dates scheduled between January 17 and February 9. He admitted it is "unfortunate" he won't be joining, saying: "I'm afraid I will not be able to do the Strictly tour. My own tour was meant to be on the road in September and a lot of dates were moved to Jan and Feb to accommodate doing #Strictly. It's unfortunate as it's been so much fun, but my own dates can't be moved for a second time."
He also revealed being on the show took an "emotional toll". Speaking to Ranvir Singh on This Morning he said: "It's been a really emotional Saturday night and I'm still feeling quite worn down by it. It's been three and a half months; it's relentless. It's consuming - physically and mentally it takes a toll. This is what the show does, it wears you down physically and mentally and then it pokes you with a stick until you cry in front of everybody."
After their win, Dianne posted a sweet tribute to Chris online. She wrote: "From the man who said to me weekly, 'Di, I’m just a 47-year-old comedian who signed the wrong paper', to the winner of strictly come dancing 2024. Chris started this show not having any idea at ALL about any of it!
"I wasn’t just teaching Chris the dances I was explaining everything that was also going on around us and as you know there’s a lot that goes on visually with strictly. it blew my mind even more when I actually started to explain things out loud I had so much more appreciation for everything . My teaching style was 90 percent visual I wouldn’t want to teach in a room without mirrors because it was the way I perfected things . With Chris we had to find different ways of making it work."
Follow Mirror Celebs on TikTok, Snapchat, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, YouTubeand Threads.