Toyah Willcox has said she hopes her time on Strictly Come Dancing inspires those who feel “age is the end” that everyone deserves to have a “positive and brilliant experience” every day.
The singer and actress, 66, became the second celebrity to leave the 20th anniversary series of the BBC dance competition after facing a dance-off against former Arsenal midfielder Paul Merson.
After reprising her samba to the song Poor Unfortunate Souls from The Little Mermaid during the results show on Sunday, the judges unanimously agreed to save Merson and his partner Karen Hauer, sending Willcox and her partner Neil Jones packing.
Appearing on spin-off Strictly: It Takes Two on Monday, she said she was “gutted” to be leaving the show, but was not going to let her early departure blight the “fantastic time” she had.
She added: “I was not off first, which meant a lot to me. I’ve had the most brilliant life-affirming experience in the last two months, I’m in a good place.”
Willcox survived the first dance-off the previous week against 24-year-old Olympic gold-medallist swimmer Tom Dean and his partner Nadiya Bychkova.
Reflecting on why she wanted to challenge stereotypes about age by participating, she said: “It’s incredibly important that everyone has a good day every day of their lives.
“I’m 66, I’ve never been shy about that, and I have to say that Strictly has made me feel so incredibly healthy, which I love.
“But we all deserve every day of our life, no matter what age we are, for it to be a positive and brilliant experience, and if I can put that across to people who are feeling that age is the end, then I’ve done a good job.”
The It’s A Mystery singer added that during her experience she had found “joy” and how to laugh again thanks to her dance partner Jones.
Her routine for movie week saw her dress as Ursula, the villainous sea witch from the Disney classic, with a purple fringed dress and voluminous white and purple hair.
She received the lowest score during Saturday’s live show with 15 out of 40, prompting judge Craig Revel Horwood to describe her as “stuck in the mud” after she fell to the bottom of the leaderboard the previous week.
Willcox said performing as Ursula was “brilliant” and praised the make-up and costume departments as the “best in the world”.
Professional dancer Jones told Willcox that he was going to remain in contact “for life” now after they had had “so much fun” and laughter during rehearsals.
“We’ve had really great conversations as well, and it was so nice to hear you’ve been waiting so long to do the show and it’s brilliant when she came to the show and she asked for me, that meant a lot to me,” he added.
Willcox also revealed she thought comedian Chris McCausland was the one to watch, joking: “If you don’t want to do a dance-off, get rid of Chris.”
Love Island star Tasha Ghouri topped the movie week leaderboard scoring 34 points for her rumba with Aljaz Skorjanec to Billie Eilish’s What Was I Made For? from the Barbie movie.
Strictly Come Dancing returns on Saturday at 6.20pm with the results show on Sunday at 7.20pm on BBC One.
