Kym Marsh has opened up about the reason she decided to take part in this year's Strictly after years of turning the BBC show down.
It will be a busy time for Kym, 46, as she is currently filming Waterloo Road and BBC show Morning Live on Mondays.
In June last year, Kym revealed that her dad Dave had been diagnosed with incurable prostate cancer after delaying getting a check-up during the pandemic.
Admitting that she doesn't know how much time he has left, Kym said that she wanted to do the show so he could come and see her dance.
She also hopes that her husband Scott Ratcliff - who is a major in the the army Parachute Regiment - will be able to see her as he may be deployed next year.
"I don't know how long my dad's going to be around, we have no idea, but we know he's not well," she told the Mirror and other news publications ahead of the Strictly launch. "So you're just like, right, I'm going to to things I know he'd love me to do and he'll come and see me.
"My husband's in the army and he might be deployed again next year. So you just think, lets do things while you can."
Quizzed on how she'll be able to fit Strictly into her busy schedule, she said that her Waterloo Road bosses had been very accommodating.
"I'm filming for Waterloo Road at the moment and I'm doing Morning Live every Monday morning. So yeah, I will juggle things around a bit," she said. "Waterloo Road have been great, they're very much onboard with this that I've been doing it and have been great with in terms of scheduling and trying to make sure that I've got time.
"Before I even said officially yes to Strictly I had to go and have that meeting because my agent said 'You don't want to have burnout, you don't want to say yes and then you can't train or you train too much and you're working too much and you're shattered. At the moment, I'm hoping, and we'll see how it goes'."
*Strictly airs Friday and Saturday on BBC One
