Bill Bailey “lost the sensation” in his toes when he participated in ‘Strictly Come Dancing’.
The 58-year-old comic lifted the Glitterball Trophy as winner of the 2020 edition of the BBC One Latin and Ballroom competitors with his expert partner Oti Mabuse, 32, however confessed that the experience was “intense” since he needed to train for 12 hours a day.
The 58-year-old comic informed the Metro paper’s SixtySeconds column: “It was a great deal of effort. We’d train 12 hours a day. I lost sensation in 2 toes – the middle ones. Oti Mabuse, my dance partner, said, ‘You don’t require those 2’.
“So my toes have actually been ‘passengers’ my entire life. ‘Strictly was all-consuming. But it was great fun. And who knew I could dance? Not me.”
Meanwhile, the former ‘Never Mind the Buzzcocks’ star admitted that he stills writes “every day” and is inspired by everything he sees.
He said: “Every day, I write. Something happens – a conversation, an overheard phrase, a headline, a chance meeting… I try to remember or record it.”
He also enthused about the importance of preserving the “cultural heritage” of crafting.
Bill said: “They are being lost. The students in the programme visit places where these crafts are still done but this is perhaps the last generation. If they’re not handed down, we may lose them. You could argue, ‘What’s the excellent loss?’ But it’s all part of our cultural heritage. These abilities have actually been given for centuries.
The previous ‘QI’ star likewise revealed how his and his partner Kristen’s animal rescue objective was an item of a “snowball” result and detailed a mean parrot who would babble at “misfortune”.
Bill said: “It started a few years ago. We had a rabbit, then a guinea pig, then a few more rabbits and a few more guinea pigs. Then a couple of dogs. These things snowball.
“We had a parrot that would laugh in a very human way at misfortune. If you banged your toe, the parrot would cackle. For a long time, we were being mocked by another species – when you have been mocked by another species, it’s very humbling.”
