Helen Skelton's four-word warning to Strictly Come Dancing contestants as show reaches final weeks

Adventure-loving Helen Skelton doesn’t believe in putting pressure on herself – unless, of course, it’s the “right” sort of pressure, like kayaking the length of the Amazon for a good cause.

For those who enjoyed watching the Carlisle-born TV presenter pootle around Yorkshire with her friend Dan Walker in their recent Channel 5 series, Yorkshire Great And Small With Dan And Helen, it’s easy to forget just how much of an adrenaline junkie this woman is. In this exclusive chat with OK!, as well as talking about the chaos of raising three young children, Helen shares what makes her chase that thrill-seeking high.

“I think the older you get, the more you learn to appreciate what puts a smile on your face and what gets your blood pumping. For me, it’s that kind of stuff,” says the former Blue Peter host and Strictly star. “I was very lucky that for a long time I was in kids’ telly and it was my job to do weird and exhilarating things, and I realised that I liked it. I wasn’t good at anything growing up, and doing this stuff you don’t have to be good at anything, you just have to be a little bit brave – and stupid!”

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Helen’s list of achievements includes a tightrope walk over Battersea Power Station for Comic Relief in 2011 and an ultramarathon in Namibia in 2009, where she was one of only 15 competitors to finish and became the second woman ever to complete the 78-mile event. She has also held numerous Guinness World Records, including the longest solo journey by kayak and the longest distance travelled in a kayak in 24 hours by a woman after she kayaked the length of the River Amazon on her own for Sport Relief in 2010.

More recently, Helen canoed across the world’s highest aqueduct (in north Wales) to launch a Virgin Red campaign that encourages more people to tackle their fears.

So is there anything this woman won’t do? “There’s plenty,” Helen insists. “But a long time ago, I did a downhill skateboarding thing and I was absolutely terrified. I couldn’t speak or breathe. I did it anyway and it felt great – I was really proud of myself. That’s my measuring point now. Being scared of something isn’t a bad thing.”

One reason she’s so good at facing her fears, she says, is because she wants to set a good example for her kids, Ernie, nine, Louis, seven, and Elsie, two, who she shares with her ex-husband Richie Myler. “I wouldn’t for one second begin to profess that I’m getting any of this parenting thing right, but what is important to me is that I can’t expect my kids to be outdoorsy and adventurous and take on challenges and be resilient if they don’t see me do it,” she says.

When she’s not taking her children up “a couple of Wainrights” on a rainy Monday, Helen says their life at home in Cumbria is “wonderful chaos” – full of the usual school clubs, play dates and football matches.

“In the last year, whenever friends get in my car they’re like, ‘What the hell?’ It’s full of football boots, apple cores, everything. That’s my life at the moment. My friends always say my house is like Piccadilly Circus because there’s a revolving door of kids coming and going. But I’m alright with it. I know in the blink of an eye they’ll be teenagers and won’t want to speak to me, let alone hang out with me. “At the minute, if I’m not on the sidelines, they’re not happy, so life is very much about being PA to three small people. I’m grateful for it.”

Once the kids are in bed, how does Helen wind down – a Netflix boxset, maybe? “Did you say bed?” she laughs. “I don’t think my children know what that word is! I have two terrible sleepers, my eldest and youngest, so I fall asleep when they do. My youngest was up from 2am to 4am this morning watching CoComelon !”

But at 41, Helen has learned to embrace the chaos of running a busy household. “I’m happy to be the person who always asks in the WhatsApp groups where we’re supposed to be that day,” she says. “I’m happy to be the person who turns up at the birthday party and gives the kid a tenner rather than a perfectly-wrapped present. I just take the pressure off.”

She is also a firm believer that no is a legitimate answer – a life lesson she learned when she was residing in France in 2015. “Early on, I asked someone with kids of a similar age, who became one of my best friends there, if she wanted to have a play date and she just said no. I remember feeling crestfallen,” Helen explains. “She called me a few days later and said, ‘It’s not that I don’t like you, Helen, I just didn’t want to.’ In Britain, we say yes even if we’ve got 7,000 things to do – French people just go, ‘No.’

The word ‘no’ is a full sentence and that’s alright.” Helen moved to France shortly after Ernie’s birth, then moved around a lot after returning to the UK (Ernie has lived in 10 houses so far), before recently settling back in Cumbria, near her parents and childhood friends.

“It’s the right place for me, right now,” she says. But she doesn’t rule out further moves in future – even if waving goodbye to the welcome support she gets from her mum and dad, Janet and Richard, would be tough. “My parents are professional grandparents,” she laughs. “Some of my kids’ friends actually call my mum Granny! And Dad has joined all the WhatsApp groups for the kids’ activities. He keeps leaving voicenotes by mistake. He accidentally left a three-minute voicenote to the football group the other day!”

Helen says this support from her family and old school friends made her transition back to Cumbria a breeze and helped her with her work-life balance. It was particularly helpful having this support when she took part in Strictly Come Dancing in 2022, where she danced her way into the runner-up position with Gorka Marquez, but missed out on the Glitterball to Hamza Yassin and Jowita Przystał.

She’s been rooting for her friend JB Gill on this year’s show and admits she’d love to do it all again. “It’s like the most wonderful roller coaster,” she says. “You get on, you’re nervous and you don’t dare put your arms in the air until the last minute, then you put your arms in the air and it’s over. I tell people just to lean into every second because when it’s gone, it’s gone.

“I’m lucky – I wasn’t in it for any reason other than to put a smile on my kids’ faces. I didn’t need to sell books or launch something, I just wanted my kids to see me doing something where I was smiling and shining –literally like a glitterball.”

Helen has stayed in touch with many of the other dancers from her series and now counts Gorka, Sara Davies, Fleur East, Molly Rainford and Tyler West as good friends.

“My eldest adores Molly, as most little boys do,” she says. “I’m still in awe of it all. It’s TV that you can’t take your eyes off. It injects joy into your living room.”

Helen has joined forces with Virgin Red for its Paddle Partners campaign, encouraging Brits to face their fear of heights and canoe across the world’s highest aqueduct