Kevin Clifton: ‘It gets difficult’ Strictly pro breaks silence amid Stacey Dooley claims

Kevin Clifton, 36, has admitted he has faced “struggles” in his personal life but has praised presenter and journalist Stacey Dooley, 30, for their Strictly Come Dancing win last year. The professional dancer told the audience at the opening night of Burn The Floor, accoridng to the Daily Mirror: “In the last couple of years I’ve seen massive upheaval in my personal life and it hasn’t always been easy. “There have been a lot of things thrown at me. At times I’ve struggled. “And the times I’ve struggled and I was in a bit of a rut I didn’t know what to do.”

Kevin credited Stacey for a career triumph after becoming disinterested in dance.

He said: “Thanks to Miss Stacey Dooley, I can finally say I’m the Strictly champion after six years of trying.

The Strictly star also revealed he almost quit dancing but then he received an offer from Burn The Floor which restarted his career.

The dancer divulged: “Without Burn the Floor I wouldn’t be a dancer anymore and without Burn the Floor, there would not have been any Strictly Come Dancing for me, so they saved my career… and stopped my mum from panicking about what I’d do.”

Kevin opened the tour alongside his fellow Strictly co-stars Graziano Di Prima and Johannes Radebe on Thursday.

His admission comes after he recently made headlines after Stacey split from personal trainer Sam Tucknott, 30, after five years together, following her stint on Strictly.

Sam recently spoke out about the couple’s break-up claiming he found texts on Stacey’s phone from Kevin and alleged she told him she had fallen for him.

However, filmmaker Stacey later took to Twitter and branded “some” of the claims “utter nonsense”.

Meanwhile, Kevin, who joined the BBC series Strictly Come Dancing in 2013, has been married three times.

Little is known about his first wife whom he married when he was 20-years-old.

He tied the knot with his second wife in 2007 but the pair split in 2010 and their divorce was finalised three years later.

Kevin married his Strictly co-star Karen Clifton in July 2015 in New York, after they met while working on Broadway.

The pair confirmed their split in March 2018 but continue to work together as professional dancers.

Speaking to Hello Magazine, Kevin said: “It was important to be honest about everything.

“I think there is a lot of pressure on people to be perfect all the time, and so there is this fairytale image of everything, but at the end of the day we are just like other people.

“We are just two people who love what we do and we never want to pretend to your fans or to anybody.”

source: express.co.uk