{"id":317689,"date":"2026-02-26T05:10:10","date_gmt":"2026-02-26T05:10:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/317689\/"},"modified":"2026-02-26T05:10:10","modified_gmt":"2026-02-26T05:10:10","slug":"melanie-blatt-says-strictly-come-dancing-stripped-away-her-confidence-and-left-her-extremely-vulnerable-after-it-took-50-years-to-feel-as-good-as-ive-ever-felt-about-myself","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/317689\/","title":{"rendered":"Melanie Blatt says Strictly Come Dancing stripped away her confidence and left her ‘extremely vulnerable’ after it took ’50 years to feel as good as I’ve ever felt about myself’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Melanie Blatt<\/a> says the lifetime she’d spent working on her self-esteem took little more than two hours to destroy after she signed up for the Strictly<\/a> Come Dancing Christmas<\/a> special.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Paired with British ballroom dancer Kai Widdrington<\/a>, the All Saints star was one of six celebrities to take part in last year’s festive spin-off, pre-recorded and aired annually by the BBC<\/a> on Christmas Day.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But she says the special, won by\u00a0presenter Scarlett Moffatt<\/a> and her professional dance partner\u00a0Vito Coppola<\/a>, was a chastening experience that shattered her confidence and left her feeling emotionally raw.\u00a0<\/p>\n

‘I felt extremely vulnerable,’ Blatt, 50, told the April edition of Good Housekeeping UK<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

‘It\u2019s taken me 50 years to feel as good as I\u2019ve ever felt about myself and Strictly stripped it away from me.\u00a0<\/p>\n

‘Nothing dodgy went on – I think they\u2019re on their best behaviour – but I just didn\u2019t feel comfortable in a dress.’\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Melanie <\/p>\n

Melanie Blatt says the lifetime she’d spent working on her self-esteem took little more than two hours to destroy after she signed up for the Strictly Come Dancing Christmas special<\/p>\n

The singer was approached by Strictly producers just three years after All Saints, the notoriously dysfunctional girl-band she helped found in 1993, broke up for the third and final time.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Along with close friends Shaznay Lewis and sisters Nicole and Natalie Appleton, Blatt became a household name after scoring a number four hit with their second single, I Know Where It’s At, in 1997.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Even greater success would follow, with subsequent singles Never Ever, Under The Bridge – a cover of the Red Hot Chilli Peppers classic – and Pure Shores all climbing to number one on the UK singles chart.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But Blatt says she was deeply embarrassed by the band’s mainstream musical direction and enormous commercial appeal, having been influenced by a variety of credible hip hop and R&B artists.\u00a0<\/p>\n

‘I wanted to work with Timbaland and Missy Elliott<\/a>,’ she recalled. ‘If it was left to me, I\u2019d be a carbon copy of those artists!\u00a0<\/p>\n

‘I didn\u2019t want to release Pure Shores – I was always making a fuss, I was always upset – and I was wrong. It became our biggest song.\u00a0<\/p>\n

‘I\u2019m more comfortable with hearing\u00a0All Saints<\/a>\u00a0songs now, but I spent many, many years feeling ashamed about being in a pop band.’\u00a0<\/p>\n

Internal pressure would inevitably follow personal shame after Blatt and bandmate Nicole discovered they were both pregnant.\u00a0<\/p>\n

‘Nic and I took our pregnancy tests together in a hotel room in Canada,’ she recalled. ‘It was the best night ever… then the story got out and spread like wildfire.\u00a0<\/p>\n

‘There was talk of how we could ruin the band. We were letting the other girls down.’<\/p>\n

Blatt and former partner\u00a0Stuart Zender, a bass player with Jamiroquai, would eventually welcome\u00a0daughter\u00a0Lilyella, now 27,\u00a0 on November 20, 1998.\u00a0<\/p>\n

‘I\u2019d only been dating Lily\u2019s dad [Jamiroquai bassist Stuart Zender] for a couple of months and the pregnancy was unplanned, but I knew that having the baby was absolutely the right thing for me,’ she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

‘Nic decided to have an abortion, but we didn\u2019t really discuss it because we didn\u2019t have the communication skills to do so. I don\u2019t think we\u2019ve ever spoken about it, to this day.’<\/p>\n

\"Paired <\/p>\n

Paired with ballroom dancer Kai Widdrington , the All Saints star was one of six celebrities to take part in last year’s festive spin-off, aired annually by the BBC on Christmas Day<\/p>\n

\"Blatt <\/p>\n

Blatt says the special was a chastening experience that shattered her confidence and left her feeling emotionally raw<\/p>\n

\"'I <\/p>\n

‘I felt extremely vulnerable,’ Blatt told the April edition of Good Housekeeping UK . ‘It\u2019s taken me 50 years to feel as good as I\u2019ve ever felt about myself and Strictly stripped it away from me’<\/p>\n

The group ultimately disbanded in 2001, but would reform five years later after signing a new record deal with Parlophone, a move that would lead to the release of their third album,\u00a0Studio 1.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But the reunion would be short lived. After a second split in 2008 it would be another five years before they announced another comeback, released another album – Red Flag, in 2016 – and parted ways for a second time.<\/p>\n

‘It was always a difficult relationship between the four of us,’ Blatt said. ‘For a start, you\u2019ve got two sisters. Nic and I were best friends when we were 11, then Shaz and I were best friends\u2026 we could never get it right.’\u00a0<\/p>\n

The band reformed for a final time in 2017, a move that culminated in the release of fifth album Testament and a national tour before an indefinite hiatus was announced in 2022.\u00a0<\/p>\n

‘It\u2019s such a shame; I think if we\u2019d got it right, we\u2019d have been laughing. At the same time, we didn\u2019t fake it. We didn\u2019t pretend we were okay.\u00a0And we certainly didn\u2019t stay in the band for money.’\u00a0<\/p>\n

Blatt is now looking to establish herself away from the music industry and says her only objective, after years of difficulty with All Saints, is the pursuit of happiness.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cMy dream is to do a cookery book,’ she said. ‘Or have my own cookery programme. Something like \u2018Cheeses of the World\u2019 where I travel to Africa and Asia and talk to people about cheese.\u00a0<\/p>\n

‘I\u2019m putting it out there, because I\u2019m going to make it happen.<\/p>\n

‘My motivation in life is just to be happy. I\u2019ve got to 50 and I\u2019ve made a lot of mistakes, but the main thing I want from life is peace and happiness.’<\/p>\n

Read the full interview, available in Good Housekeeping UK\u2019s April issue, on sale from 26th February.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Read <\/p>\n

Read the full interview, available in Good Housekeeping UK\u2019s April issue, on sale from 26th February<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Melanie Blatt says the lifetime she’d spent working on her self-esteem took little more than two hours to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":317690,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[539,93,61,60,1489],"class_list":["post-317689","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-dailymail","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-tvshowbiz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317689","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=317689"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317689\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/317690"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=317689"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=317689"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=317689"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}