Carol Vorderman has revealed she “hated” her time on Strictly Come Dancing and would never appear on Big Brother. The former Countdown star, who first appeared on the show in 1982, spoke about her television experiences on Sally Lindsay’s “A Night In” podcast.
Strictly experience
“I did Strictly in the second series,” Vorderman said. “Clare Sweeney persuaded me to do it because she was in series one. And I hated it.”
Partnered with professional dancer Paul Killick, she was eliminated early in the competition. “I won't do that again,” she joked. “Not that they'd ever ask.”
She also ruled out appearing on Big Brother: “I would never do Big Brother. I'd be cancelled before I set foot through the bloody door.”
Tomorrow's World conflict
Vorderman recounted a dispute with the BBC over her role on Tomorrow's World. The BBC approached her after a focus group listed her as the most wanted presenter. Her agent negotiated a contract for one day a week, but the contract required her to be exclusive to the BBC, meaning she could not continue on Countdown.
“I rang [my agent]. And I said ‘That's never going to happen. I'm not giving Countdown up ever. That's not going to happen’,” she said.
Eventually the BBC compromised and she started the job. While filming in Australia, she received a call to contact her agent. BBC executives had realised she had been appearing in adverts for soap powder before joining them, leading to her dismissal from Tomorrow's World and other BBC projects, including a column in Radio Times.
“Loads of arguments went on and then in the end they said ‘You're sacked,’” Vorderman recalled.
The sacking made front-page news. “So I fought back through the press,” she said. “I wrote articles saying ‘Hang on, this is just sexism. I'm sacked for doing an advert when Noel Edmonds is doing Noel's Maxwell House coffee adverts and Terry Wogan, who was one of their biggest stars was doing British Gas.’”
Months later, after viewing figures dropped dramatically, the BBC asked her to return. The show’s editor begged her to rejoin but said, “If you tell anyone that we're offering you your job back, we will deny it.”
Vorderman then told her agent to “keep stringing them along till a week or two before transmission and then tell them where to go. That's what we did!”
