Dancing on Ice has announced the first two celebrities who have signed up for the 2019 series.
Unveiled on today’s episode of This Morning (October 1), Gemma Collins and Richard Blackwood will be taking to the ice rink when the show returns early next year.
“Do you know what – as a young girl, my brother used to play ice hockey, so I was at the ice rink a lot,” Gemma told Phillip Schofield and Holly Willoughby.
“I know how hard it is. I’ve done my research, Phil – I am scared, I am nervous, I don’t know how they’re going to lift me up and how fast I can move around the ice, but I really want to give it a go.
“I love the costumes, I want the fun factor. I just really want to give this a go!”
Of course, Richard’s appearance is no surprise. Dancing on Ice’s social media has been busy teasing the line-up in a series of recent Instagram posts, and one such picture teaser all but confirmed the former EastEnders star last week, as his tattoos were visible in the shot.
“I grew up in Sweden, so I used to skate out there,” he said. “I can skate, but I normally dance on dry land. So dancing and skating are two different things, which I’ve got to combine.”
Blackwood, who played Vincent Hubbard, departed from the BBC soap earlier this year, and he admitted that he would “of course” return to EastEnders if the offer was there.
“We don’t know if [Vincent] was shot. We don’t know,” he said back in April. “I think [the door is] slightly ajar, and if they asked me to come back in the future, of course I would.”
