{"id":135095,"date":"2025-09-13T18:04:22","date_gmt":"2025-09-13T18:04:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/135095\/"},"modified":"2025-09-13T18:04:22","modified_gmt":"2025-09-13T18:04:22","slug":"chris-robshaw-on-his-stalker-horror-shes-ruined-peoples-lives","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/135095\/","title":{"rendered":"Chris Robshaw on his stalker horror: \u2018She\u2019s ruined people\u2019s lives\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chris Robshaw is exhausted. \u201cMy joints are starting to feel it already,\u201d he says, stretching out his 6ft 2in, 110kg frame on the sofa in the sitting room of his Surrey home. The former England rugby captain has just finished training, not for a game but for his first performance on Strictly Come Dancing. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe learnt the salsa this week,\u201d he says proudly, \u201cor was it the samba? I\u2019m still learning which is which.\u201d Robshaw was on the fence about taking part in the new series, which starts this weekend. It was his wife, the opera singer Camilla Kerslake<\/a>, who finally convinced him to sign up. She asked when he last did something that pushed him out of his comfort zone, made him feel afraid. The answer, Robshaw says, is not since he stopped playing professional rugby three years ago. <\/p>\n

\u201cI work hard on things and I do this and that,\u201d he shrugs, \u201cbut if I\u2019m honest, I haven\u2019t done something that really scares me since I retired.\u201d Robshaw, 39, hung up his boots in 2022. It was the end of an illustrious 18-year career, 15 of which were spent with his Premiership-winning team, Harlequins. For almost a decade he played for England, earning 66 caps and serving as captain for three years, before the team\u2019s devastating crash out of the World Cup in 2015. Dancing isn\u2019t something he saw in his future, not least because he\u2019s not very good at it, \u201capart from when I\u2019ve had a couple of beers or tequilas\u201d. <\/p>\n

But learning a skill has brought some joy, he says, in what has otherwise been \u201ca terribly difficult year for our family\u201d. Last month it emerged that Robshaw had been the victim of a stalker. <\/p>\n

\"Chris<\/p>\n

Robshaw and his wife, Camilla Kerslake, at the 2022 Fashion Awards<\/p>\n

ALAN D\/ALAMY<\/p>\n

Last summer, Robshaw briefly met a woman at two separate work events. Within six months of their initial interaction, she commenced a campaign of harassment, allegedly spreading false claims about him and encouraging others to do the same, including threats to tell lies about him and Camilla to social services \u2014 the couple have two sons, Wilding, four, and Hunter, one. When the threats turned violent, Robshaw called the police. <\/p>\n

The investigation is still active and Robshaw is not able to discuss it in detail, but he describes it as a \u201ctough situation\u201d and an \u201congoing headache\u201d. The perpetrator, he says, \u201chas multiple male and female victims spanning over many years who are unconnected and unknown to each other\u201d and have \u201ccollectively had their lives ruined after enduring threats and harassment at the hands of this person\u201d. According to reports, the woman is known to the authorities for similar offences against other victims, some of whom have alleged that she set fires and made bomb threats. <\/p>\n

Kerslake, who had just given birth to Hunter when the ordeal began, addressed the situation on Instagram last month, saying the couple were \u201cnavigating a lot behind the scenes. We\u2019re choosing to move forward \u2026 This won\u2019t define us and instead, we\u2019ll be focusing on our family and the exciting journey ahead.\u201d <\/p>\n

Robshaw says: \u201cWhat should\u2019ve been a time for celebrating our new baby was overshadowed as we were dealing with the horror of this. But Strictly has brought us some joy. It\u2019s nice to hear the family laughing again, even if it is at my expense.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

The Strictly contestants, left to right Harry Aikines-Aryeetey, Vicky Pattison, Thomas Skinner, Ross King, George Clarke, Stefan Dennis, Dani Dyer, Alex Kingston, Balvinder Sopal, Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink, Karen Carney, Ellie Goldstein, Chris Robshaw, Lewis Cope and La Voix<\/p>\n

RAY BURMISTON\/BBC<\/p>\n

Robshaw may not have been a Strictly fan but the competitive element of the programme clearly appeals. \u201cWhen you retire from sport, you don\u2019t miss going out in the rain or doing tackles,\u201d he says. \u201cYou miss the buzz, that hair-on-the-back-of-your-neck feeling of running out at Twickenham \u2026 Maybe this can give me that.\u201d <\/p>\n

Robshaw, who grew up in Warlingham, Surrey, has played rugby since the age of seven. He now fills his time with \u201cvarious part-time roles\u201d \u2014 coaching rugby at a local school, acting as a silent partner in a chain of coffee shops in Hampshire, investing in fine wine and running a charity foundation with his wife \u2014 but rugby \u201cis all I\u2019ve ever known\u201d, he says. <\/p>\n

Having left the game, he\u2019s \u201cstill very regimented\u201d but has \u201cstruggled at various points\u201d because, for a long time, sport served as an outlet for otherwise pent-up emotions, including grief. When he was five years old, his father, Alan, 40, had a fatal heart attack. Robshaw\u2019s older brother, Al, turned the same age a few years ago, and next June so will he. It\u2019s a milestone he\u2019s been thinking about a lot. \u201cWhen you\u2019re a kid, you think 40 is old but then all of a sudden you\u2019re that age with a young family,\u201d he says. \u201cI look around and I think how devastating it would be if something like that happened to one of us, what we\u2019d leave behind \u2026 I think about it more now that I\u2019ve got children. It definitely creeps up on me.\u201d <\/p>\n

Robshaw<\/a> is a towering figure, warm and well mannered. As we speak, Rico, his elderly \u201cslightly blind\u201d affenpinscher toy dog snores between us on the sofa. \u201cEveryone assumes I\u2019d have a bigger dog,\u201d he says when I point out how incongruous they look. \u201cIt\u2019s like they expect me to have a rottweiler or something.\u201d <\/p>\n

\"Chris<\/p>\n

LUCY YOUNG FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES<\/p>\n

Having children has made him \u201ca more emotional\u201d<\/a> man, who \u201cweeps at rom-coms or even memes\u201d. On the day we meet it is Wilding\u2019s first day of school and Hunter\u2019s first day at nursery (\u201ca massive milestone\u201d). At the height of his rugby career, Robshaw says, he was \u201cstern, career-driven\u201d and \u201ccarried a lot of baggage\u201d. <\/p>\n

That baggage was heaviest after the 2015 World Cup, which England hosted. The home team, captained by Robshaw, were eliminated before the knockout stages. While he was confident in his playing abilities, Robshaw has dyslexia, which made him worry about public speaking and hosting team meetings, especially when he had to write on a whiteboard, \u201cbecause I didn\u2019t want to spell things wrong. I do get self-conscious about stuff.\u201d <\/p>\n

He was blamed for England\u2019s loss and \u201cburnt pretty hard. Sport means a lot to people, it means a lot to me. It was the best part of my life. The players care more than anyone. When someone misses a penalty, they don\u2019t sleep for days, they are distraught. But unfortunately in [games] we only see the robot. We don\u2019t see the person or the emotion.\u201d <\/p>\n

\"Chris<\/p>\n

Robshaw became the face of England\u2019s World Cup disaster in 2015<\/p>\n

DAVID DAVIES\/PA<\/p>\n

The years since have brought a newfound desire to teach young men, including his sons, the importance of allowing themselves to accept their emotions<\/a>. He has had therapy, which he describes as a \u201cdaunting process\u201d, and feels he has a much better \u201ctoolkit\u201d to help navigate the highs and lows of Strictly. His main concern now, aside from learning the steps, is trying to loosen up enough to enjoy the experience. \u201cAs a sportsperson, you just say your pleases and thank-yous and toe the line, you tick a box and move on,\u201d he says. Strictly, however, requires a bit of pizzazz. \u201cIt\u2019s like I need to untrain myself from the last 20 years.\u201d <\/p>\n

Recently he was back at Twickenham to film his profile introduction for the show, \u201cstanding in front of the pitch tunnel doing a cheesy dance\u201d, when a group of families touring the stadium came along. \u201cThey were all staring at me dancing in a rugby stadium. I was so uncomfortable,\u201d he says, squirming. Friends have been gently mocking him (\u201cIf I annoy any of my mates, they start humming the theme tune\u201d) and he is \u201cslightly worried\u201d by the number of people who keep telling him \u201cyou\u2019re so brave\u201d. <\/p>\n

Ultimately, he is putting himself \u201cso far out of my comfort zone\u201d for the enjoyment of his sons. \u201cI want to show my kids that their dad is still taking on challenges even if it\u2019s in a completely different way to rugby,\u201d he says. \u201cI\u2019m extremely nervous but I\u2019m also really excited and, if nothing else, we\u2019ll have a good laugh.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Chris Robshaw is exhausted. \u201cMy joints are starting to feel it already,\u201d he says, stretching out his 6ft…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":135096,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-135095","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-rugby","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135095","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=135095"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135095\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/135096"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=135095"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=135095"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=135095"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}