Strictly Come Dancing judge Craig Revel Horwood has revealed he was once physically assaulted on live television by the husband of a BBC contestant. The 61-year-old broadcaster has served as a judge on the primetime show since its launch in 2004, building a reputation as the stern but fair panellist who is unafraid to reach for his number-one paddle.
2006 Incident with Jan Ravens
In 2016, the ballroom expert disclosed that the spouse of impressionist Jan Ravens attacked him during the show in 2006. Speaking on Tim Ward's comedy show, Here She Is, he explained how his working relationship with Ravens deteriorated after her elimination.
He said: "I disliked how my relationship finished with Jan Ravens because she blamed me for going out. She came up to me on live television and said, 'This is your fault, this is your fault!' I said, 'This is not my fault, people didn't vote for you. They just don't like you, darling'."
It was this brutally honest response that reportedly left Ravens in tears and triggered a furious reaction from her husband. Horwood continued: "Then she just screamed and started crying, and then her husband came up and started screaming at me and pushed me three times in the chest and then pushed me into the BBC bar and then I likened that to physical assault."
Stabbing in Madrid and Strip-Search
The revelation follows the judge's account of being "stabbed" during a horror attack while on holiday in Madrid, Spain, before being strip-searched by French officials. During an appearance on his Judgemental podcast, which he co-hosts with fellow judge Anton Du Beke, he recalled the ordeal.
He told listeners: "I went on holiday in Madrid and got stabbed, that was nice, and it was stinking hot. My jewellery was stolen as well, they ripped my necklace off my neck and gave me a big burn mark... It was a razor blade... I was slashed... [in the] stomach coming home from a club, it was probably two o'clock in the morning."
At the time, Horwood was dancing at the Lido in Paris, France, and had crossed the border to Spain for a holiday that "ended up pretty bad." He added: "And then when I got back, I got strip-searched. I hadn't shaved, so I did look a bit of a wreck. I'd been stabbed, and I had burn marks all around my neck from where I was attacked. And then the French strip-searched me down to literally nothing... they were looking for drugs."
Kenya Hotel Fire
This is not the star's first disastrous retreat. He previously recounted a horror trip to Kenya, when he discovered his hotel had burned to the ground. He recalled: "I remember flying to Mombasa in Kenya. It was all fabulous, I thought, 'Oh yeah, I'm going on safari, that's going to be nice'. Got out there, arrived, all the hotels and everything were paid for in advance, they're giving us a bus from the airport to the hotel, and they said on arrival, 'Your hotel has burnt down'. The hotel was burnt down, and no one bothered to tell us until we actually arrived. Anyway, they found us another one, they just shoved us in there, [and] I went on a very romantic cruise down the River Nile."
