Ulrika Jonsson says turning down Strictly hosting job was 'heartbreaking'
Ulrika Jonsson has shared her heartbreak at turning down the Strictly hosting job.
The original Gladiators host claimed she had no choice but to say no to BBC bosses because she was weeks away from giving birth. She said this was when BBC bosses had penned in to start filming the show.
Jonsson said she would have been presenting alongside the now late Bruce Forsyth, who stepped down from Strictly in 2014. Tess Daly landed the envy-inducing showbiz job and she's still there 20 years later, now presenting with The Traitors host Claudia Winkleman.
Despite Strictly being in crisis, Jonsson had no qualms admitting she was heartbroken at having to turn down the job back in the day. She was sharing her story in the light of news that Maya Jama split from Stormzy apparently over not being ready to have babies.
Jonsson said there was no right time to start a family while juggling a job in showbiz. She wrote in The Sun: "I was asked if I was interested in hosting a programme that was about to launch on BBC1 called Strictly Come Dancing."
She added: "I was keen as mustard but I was pregnant and would have been a few weeks away from giving birth when filming would have taken place. So, I had no choice but to turn it down, which was heartbreaking. My husband at the time would not have needed to turn down any work because he wasn’t the one who was pregnant."
However, Jonsson also previously said her one ambition in life was to become a mum. She has four children Cameron, Bo, Martha and Malcolm.
Yahoo has reached out to BBC and Tess Daly's representatives for further comment.
Ulrika Jonsson on hosting Gladiators
She claimed the job offer came 10 years after her stint on Gladiators. Jonsson was made a huge star when she presented Gladiators alongside John Fashanu. In the 1990s, the primetime show would attract as many as 14million viewers.
As the show was rebooted by the BBC this year, Jonsson spoke about her experiences behind the scenes of the original ITV series. The TV star admitted there was a lot of "bed-hopping". Of course, away from the cameras of the show, Jonsson had romanced Gladiator Hunter.
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She told The Telegraph: "Gladiators was as rock and roll as you can imagine. It was like they [the Gladiators] were on drugs. Well, they were probably on different kinds of drugs. But they were so excitable.
"You don’t build a body like that without bucketfuls of vanity. But this was their moment and they got very excited. There was a lot of bed-hopping. The producers put them all on one floor in the hotel, which made it easy."
