Inside Angela Rippon's husband's new life abroad after Strictly star's heartbreaking split
21.10.2023 - 16:07
/ ok.co.uk
The BBC's most senior Strictly Come Dancing contestant, Angela Rippon, has been delighting fans with her dance skills and impressive flexibility with partner Kai Widdrington. Although Angela is celebrated for her illustrious TV career, she has mostly kept her private life away from the limelight. Angela's life, as fascinating as it is, has been marked by personal challenges, including the end of her marriage to childhood sweetheart Christopher Dare, which was described as a "painful" breakup.
The couple, who were sweethearts from an early age, tied the knot in 1967, just as Angela's career was taking off.
Angela was only 22 years old at the time, and she reportedly met Christopher at a YMCA dance. The couple, who never had children, shared their married life in a charming 17th-century cottage on the outskirts of Dartmoor's moorlands. Unfortunately, their love story did not have a fairy tale ending.
In 1989, they made the difficult decision to part ways, though Angela did not publicly announce their separation for over a year. By then, Christopher was already living with a fellow divorcee named Judy. Angela, reflecting on that "stressful" period in her life during an interview with Modern & Mature when she was 60, said: “It was a stress, of course it was.It was a very stressful period for all sorts of reasons.
My immediate feeling was, 'Oh God, I've failed at this.' “But in fact, he and I are still good friends. I talk to him on the phone a couple of times a month. We email each other.
He lives in Spain now with his partner, Judy. We exchange cards at birthdays and Christmas. Judy kind of updates me on what they're doing with their home down in Spain.