Kevin Clifton has revealed how his other half Stacey Dooley responded to him researching his ancestors on Who Do You Think You Are?, confessing that she was ‘jealous’ when she was rejected by the BBC programme.
After dating since 2019, the former Strictly Come Dancing partners had their first child, a girl named Minnie, in January of this year.
While the past few months have marked a significant change for their family’s present and future, Kevin recently travelled back in time to learn more about his ancestors, discovering a fascinating history that saw him travel all the way to Canada to learn of a legendary female relative who led an extraordinary and inspirational life.
The 40-year-old told Metro.co.uk about his experience, including how Stacey, 36, reacted when she learned he was getting a whole episode of the popular genealogy programme.
In 2021, the TV host revealed that while she had previously been approached to participate in the show, she was later turned down because the research team found “nothing interesting enough” about her family to fill an hour, given that “it’s all Ireland, Ireland, Ireland, Liverpool, Liverpool, Liverpool.”
When questioned if there was any envy or competitiveness between them when Kevin was given the opportunity to carry out an episode, the professional dancer answered, ‘Yeah, she was like, “No way! ‘How did this happen?’
He continued: ‘I remember when she got her file of stuff from Who Do You Think You Are?, and we were so excited about it and there was this massive family tree and we spread it over the kitchen floor, and it was like generations of Irish and Scousers as far as the eye could see. She was gutted not to get to do an episode.’
When Kevin ended up recording an episode, Stacey was supposedly startled to realise that there were intriguing nuggets in his family history that were worth investigating further.
‘When I was doing it, she was like, “You’ve got to be kidding me! What have they found?” And I was like, “Well they must have found something interesting, for there to be this episode,”’ he recollected.
‘Then when I kept calling her like from Canada and telling her, “Oh my god this, and oh my god that,” and telling her all about it, she was like, “This is insane. It’s absolutely insane.”’
Looking back on his travels, Kevin recalled Stacey’s teasing description of him as “the most English person I know” when she predicted that “there can’t possibly be anything intriguing, noteworthy, or foreign” in his family history.
‘I was like, it’s either going to be just a lot of dancers, and it’s going to be an episode about dancing, or it’s going to be Grimsby-focused and it’s going to be fishermen from Grimsby on my mum’s side. So for it to go where it ended up going, which I knew nothing about – like I had absolutely no knowledge of – was just crazy,’ he shared.
‘They say to you, “Don’t ask any questions. We don’t want you to know, we don’t want you doing your own research. We want you to let us do our thing, and then we’ll take you on this journey.” They said, “Okay, you’ve got an episode, you’re going to be in our hands for two weeks.” So I packed a suitcase for two weeks.
‘The first day I’m sat in my mom and dad’s kitchen in Grimsby, and then a couple of hours later, they said, “We’re flying to Canada in the morning.” I was mind blown.’
On Mother’s Day, March 19, Kevin paid homage to Stacey on Instagram, sharing a sweet photo of her cradling their two-month-old daughter.
In his caption, he wrote at the time: ‘I’ve watched my girl @sjdooley become an absolute superwoman over the last couple of months (as if she wasn’t already). The most wonderful mum to our daughter Minnie. Love you baby. Happy 1st Mother’s Day.’
Kevin’s episode of Who Do You Think You Are? is available to watch on Thursday June 22 at 9pm on BBC One and BBC iPlayer
