Carol Vorderman has confessed she “thought her career was over” following a mortifying incident on a primetime ITV show.
The former Countdown presenter shared how she ended up “in tears” after a disastrous stint on Stars In Their Eyes. Carol was the first famous face to walk down the steps when she performed as Cher in 1998.
She revealed that ex-ITV boss David Liddiment had asked her opinion on a celebrity version of the show, knowing she was a fan. Carol responded saying it was “genius”, only to realise she had inadvertently agreed to participate.
The programme, hosted by Matthew Kelly, saw contestants transformed into their favourite singers before competing against each other by performing a hit track. It ran for 17 series and saw a number of celebrity spin-offs.
Speaking on the Off Menu Podcast with Ed Gamble and James Acaster, Carol, 63, opened up about her experience on the show that left her feeling “physically sick”. Despite being “a bit of a party animal”, she admits that she had never sung through a microphone before the performance.
She said: “I was a cross between blimming Cher and Celine Dion and all the rest-, I was amazing. Except I wasn’t.”
Carol also revealed that due to the dry ice on stage, she “couldn’t see a thing” and with the sound from the audience screaming, she “couldn’t hear a thing”.
She elaborated on the experience: “And then I thought, ‘Oh, there’s the music, I’d better start.’ Whereas by that point, it’s too late. So I was like, ‘Does he looo-,’ do it again. Did it twice and I was literally-, the tears were involuntarily falling down my cheeks.”
“And I thought, ‘I can’t-,’ I said, ‘I can’t hear the music.’ And you know how in entertainment, everyone’s like really cynical, aren’t they? They go, ‘Don’t worry, love, we’ve got the shot of you coming through the ice. We’ve got the shot, just stand on the top of the steps, start,’ you know, and all of that. So yes.”
It wasn’t until much later that the episode was actually aired. Carol shared how Matthew, aged 74, sent her a text during the show, mentioning how there was “no one around” in his local supermarket – a sign that the show had drawn a large viewership.
Carol confessed: “I couldn’t watch it. I literally felt sick. I thought, ‘My career, that’s it. It’s over.’ And my cousin Pam was downstairs because she sort of half lived with us and watching it with my mum who lived with us when I was married, and she shouted up, she went, ‘Don’t worry Carol. Don’t worry, love. It’s a good job you can count.'”.
Carol estimates that around 17 million people tuned in to watch that episode. Despite the nerves surrounding her performance on Stars In Their Eyes, Carol’s career did not suffer; in fact, she continued to prosper and graced the Countdown set as the maths whiz until 2008.
Since then, she has hosted a show on BBC Radio Wales, presented on Loose Women, and regularly appears on ITV This Morning. Last year, she was a contestant on the singing show The Masked Singer, starring in one episode as the reindeer.