Debbie McGee of Strictly Come Dancing has disclosed that she was abducted and kept captive in Iran for three months.
The 64-year-old used to be a ballet dancer before a tragic occurrence in the Middle East.
Appearing on Wednesday’s Good Morning Britain, Debbie, who appeared on Strictly in 2017 and made it all the way to the final with Giovanni Pernice, explained: ‘I have led a fairytale life but I’ve also dealt with a lot of stuff.
‘They all said, we didn’t know you were a hostage in Iran.’
Host Kate Garraway replied: ‘Well, I didn’t know that.’
Debbie went on to reveal she had been held hostage for ‘about three months’.
She said: ‘I worked for a ballet company and we were all, who were Western, were herded into a block of flats.
‘The boys had to go out at six in the morning and literally the only food we could get were from the bakers on the streets which were like flat pizzas, no butter or anything, and maybe some cans of things and maybe a few eggs.’
She also revealed how she escaped, saying she had always ‘been a bit of a squirrel with money.’
Debbie continued: ‘I had this three year plan that I was going to come back and buy properties so that if showbusiness didn’t work out it would be okay.
‘I had all these savings, so I paid ten times what it would normally be.
‘I got a flight back to Switzerland, but the airport was closing that day and if anyone has seen the film Argo, that’s my story.
‘Even being stopped at the airport with gunmen, and they wouldn’t let me through because someone had changed my visa and I ran in the end.’
Debbie later met her late husband Paul Daniels, which was a silver lining to the awful situation.
‘That’s how I met Paul. I came back to England and needed a job,’ she said.
Debbie’s late husband Daniels died in March 2016 at the age of 77, barely one month after being diagnosed with a brain tumour.
They had been married for over 30 years, and had been in love since 1979, when she worked as his assistant on one of his performances.
Debbie has stated that she is open to falling in love again, noting that she ‘never claimed I was ready [for love]’ but that ‘if it happens, it happens.’
‘If you go looking for it you look desperate and you never find it,’ she suggested.
‘There is a hole… you can’t fill that gap. What you can do is accept they’ve gone, that’s the biggest thing, and take every day as it comes.’
She added that she ’embraces every minute of my life now.’
‘I was lucky,’ she went on. ‘I had this amazing life and still have an amazing life. Every day is different.’
Good Morning Britain airs weekdays from 6am on ITV.
