STACEY DOOLEY loves to snuggle up in bed every night – but not with her partner Kevin Clifton.
The TV host reveals nookie has fallen by the wayside and she is instead perfectly happy sleeping beside their two-year-old daughter Minnie.
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In fact, the 38-year-old TV star jokingly said of her love life with pro dancer Kevin: “We need to start remembering how to have sex.”
Stacey and Kevin met when they were paired on BBC One’s Strictly Come Dancing in 2018.
But he is touring the country as Billy Flynn in Chicago The Musical, with the tour running until August, and she has no plans to change her bedroom routine before his return because she loves having Minnie by her side overnight.
Stacey said: “Minnie is in our bed. I am sort of not really ar*ed.
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“I know there’s such emphasis on getting kids in their own bed, but I think it’s because Kev is away so much anyway.
“What am I doing otherwise? Maybe when Kev is back on the scene, we will start remembering how you have sex.
Of an evening we’ll have something to eat, then I’ll put her in the bath. We have a bit of a chat, put her PJs on and we just end up getting in my bed together.
Stacey
“Then maybe I would think, ‘Minnie, you’re going to have to go and hang out in your own bedroom now’.”
For now, Stacey is enjoying every second with her little girl, and says that she does not even mind going to bed at 8pm to avoid disrupting the toddler’s routine.
She told the Parenting Hell podcast, with comedians Rob Beckett and Josh Widdicombe: “Of an evening we’ll have something to eat, then I’ll put her in the bath.
“We have a bit of a chat, put her PJs on and we just end up getting in my bed together.
The One Show interview halted as Stacey Dooley rushes off set live on air
“We watch one episode of Paddington and then go to sleep.
“I am going to bed early, at 8pm. I love it, honestly!”
Little Minnie started to get used to sleeping with one of her grannies last year as they babysat when Stacey made her stage debut in a West End production of 2:22 A Ghost Story.
She said: “Now she is so used to being taken to bed — in a double bed — and having someone to sleep with.
“It was my mum or Kev’s mum, and they were going to bed at 8 o’clock, too.”
Soon, Stacey will be back on the road — with Minnie and Kevin — as the couple embrace their “first project” together.
‘Nerd of the gang’
She is returning to play Jenny on a UK tour of the hit supernatural thriller. with Kevin stepping into the role of her stage hubby, Sam.
It could mean that as soon as Kevin finishes Chicago, with Strictly’s Janette Manrara, he will be starting the new tour.
Stacey said of reprising her role: “When the opportunity presented itself again, we wondered if there was a world where we could do it together.
“And yeah, here we are. We’re taking it all over the country.”
In the theatre production, the couple are seen arguing, over the course of an evening with friends, about whether their house is haunted.
Kevin, who has also appeared on American TV’s Dancing With The Stars, has been married three times.
He divorced fellow dancer Karen Hauer in 2018, but Stacey insists marriage is not on the cards for them. They found love the year after lifting the Glitterball trophy as Strictly champions.
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Stacey was already a household name after taking part in BBC documentary Blood, Sweat And T-shirts a decade earlier.
Before that, she had worked as an assistant in a clothes shop.
But after travelling to India for the programme to see how garments are made for British High Street stores, she started to make issue-led documentaries for the BBC, which helped get her an MBE.
She has worked tirelessly since then and, in September 2023, she and Kevin quit London and relocated to Merseyside to be closer to Stacey’s mum, Di.
It allows the presenter to keep focusing on her career, with the reassurance that she has help at hand with childcare.
When she and Kevin hit the road for work later this year “as a family”, Di will help look after her granddaughter again.
I never thought I’d fancy a ballroom dancer, but here we are. They are all sort of handsome in their own way
Stacey
Stacey spoke of “my Kev”, and the joys of being able to work with the man she so clearly adores, as she announced the new show.
But she reveals he was not the dancer who caught her eye when she began tuning in to Strictly as a fan.
‘Didn’t sleep for a year’
She actually had the hots for Aljaz Skorjanec, who made his debut on the dance contest alongside Kevin in 2013. And she thought Gorka Marquez — Gemma Atkinson’s partner — was the most handsome one.
Stacey said Kevin got her attention because he was the “nerd” among loads of gorgeous men and was not the “obvious choice”.
She added: “I never thought I’d fancy a ballroom dancer, but here we are. They are all sort of handsome in their own way.
“What I liked about Kev is he’s not the immediate choice. You look at Gorka — yeah, he’s handsome. They are all obviously handsome, but there is something about Kev.
“He is so nonchalant and a bit aloof. He is the nerd of the gang that you are so desperate for him to like you. And he’s been surrounded by beautiful women his whole life.
“He is not easily impressed. So you have to have a bit of chat. Aljaz is crazy handsome. He is like a statue.”
Stacey recently had to explain all this to Kevin after a post that she put on X/Twitter in 2013 was unearthed.
I thought breastfeeding was a bit ‘woooo’. I didn’t think that would be for me, but I loved it and it became really important to me.
Stacey Dooley
Laughing, she explained: “I sent a tweet a hundred years ago, before I did the show. Kev and Aljaz started at the same time and I was like, ‘That new boy is stunning’.
“And I was referencing Aljaz. Kev was like, ‘You always fancied me’. I was like, ‘Babe, that was about Aljaz’.”
As well as dancing, acting and documentary-making, mum Stacey has now written three books.
She followed her first, Stacey Dooley: On The Frontline With The Women Who Fight Back, in 2018, with Are You Really OK?: Understanding Britain’s Mental Health Emergency in 2022. And she has just released her third, Dear Minnie, featuring a heartfelt letter to her daughter.
Bringing her trademark empathy and investigative skills to exploring the different perspectives of other mothers, Stacey uses letters each mum has written to their child as her starting point, and examines their journey from pregnancy to birth — and all the messy truths in between.
She says that her own pregnancy discovery was far from glamorous, after she did a test in a department store toilet and FaceTimed Kevin to share the positive result.
She told Nick Grimshaw and Angela Hartnett’s Dish Podcast: “I’m on this toilet and a lady’s knocking because there’s a big queue. I sort of instinctively knew — this was more like confirmation.
“I’m FaceTiming Kev, he’s got a radio mic on because he’s doing an interview, so I’m whispering, ‘I’m pregnant. Are you happy? I’m happy, I’m really happy’.
“There was nothing glossy about finding out!” Straight-talking Stacey says that parenting has wildly changed her own life and, at first, the lack of sleep “knocked her for six”.
She said of her daughter: “She was on the boob for about a year.
“Foolishly, before I had a baby, I thought breastfeeding was a bit ‘woooo’. I didn’t think that would be for me, but I loved it and it became really important to me.
“So yeah, I breastfed for a year. Didn’t sleep for a year.
“I remember the first night Minnie took a bottle of milk . . . she was upstairs and Kev texted me saying, ‘She has taken the bottle’.
“I couldn’t believe it. I thought, ‘We’ve cracked it!’.”
Now they just need to nail those sleeping arrangements . . .
