After lighting up the dancefloor on Strictly Come Dancing, Fleur East is going straight back to her day job.
The X Factor runner-up, 35, hopes her new record, on her own label, will light up the charts.
Fleur was dropped from Simon Cowell ’s label Syco in 2017, three years after her X Factor appearance, and said she felt like she had been “put on the shelf” by record bosses.
“I kind of asked to be let go,” she said previously. “It was a relief, to be honest.”
Now, she is returning with her “more mature” single Count The Ways.
She credits Strictly with giving her the “buzz of performing” once again, and says her experiences this year inspired her to start writing music again.
“After being on Strictly every weekend, the buzz of performing came back,” she says, of her first release since 2020.
“The last body of work I released was my album Fearless,” she recalls.
“It was shortly after my dad passed away and just at the time that the pandemic came into our lives, and everyone went into lockdown, so I had to cancel my tour, I had to cancel all my promo, I had to cancel everything. It was such a shame that it was released at that time.
“Since then, and since losing my dad, I’m just finding my stride again and getting back into music.
“Although I do presenting, fitness, and lots of other different things, music is my number one love,” she continues.
Count The Ways – a “playful” track about what an ex-partner has lost about you – is out next month.
Adele
Adele sang an emotional rendition of Happy Birthday to her boyfriend Rich Paul during her Las Vegas set, and squeezed his daughter’s hand over the weekend.
“I love him more than life itself,” she said tearfully to the crowd.
It must be hard to sing all those breakup songs when she’s so happy.
Tony Blackburn
Tony Blackburn is a man of simple pleasures. He tells Saga magazine: “I would be happy if there was a daily pill to take instead of eating because I don’t like food.
“When my wife arranged a 70th party for me at a hotel, all the guests had a special meal and I asked the chef for chips, beans and a fried egg.”
Perhaps he’ll add a sausage to his request when he turns 80 next month.
Christmas number one
Six years after his death on Christmas Day, George Michael could finally land the coveted Christmas No1 spot.
The singer’s yuletide classic Last Christmas only reached the festive No2 back in 1986, when it was kept off the top spot by Band Aid’s Do They Know It’s Christmas.
It is closing the gap behind charity single LadBaby, which is, very fittingly, a cover of Band Aid, titled Food Aid. Overnight, Wham! reduced the gap between the singles, which include huge pre-order numbers for LadBaby that are still putting the YouTubers 13,000 copies ahead.
But when additional streaming figures are included later in the week, expect Wham!’s numbers to surge.
It has topped the charts twice outside of the Christmas charts, in 2021 and last Friday.
The Xmas winner will be revealed in Friday’s chart.
Lee Mack
A small, local comedy club played host to The Earl and Countess of Wessex, recently. Well, stand-ins anyway.
Comic Lee Mack attributed royal titles to punters at his shows, as he tested out material before hosting the Royal Variety Performance.
“I literally said to them, ‘This is The Royal Albert Hall, you are a member of the Royal Family and you are in the Royal Box’. I pointed at people in the audience and gave them all a job and then performed like it was the Royal Variety Performance and tried some things out.
“It’s the first time I’ve ever turned up at a gig in my suit and a dicky bow.”
Hopefully he also gave this yellow duck costume, suspenders and police hat a road test, too.
The Royal Variety Performance is on tonight at 8pm on ITV1 and ITVX.
Strictly Christmas special
Let’s hope Corrie’s Alexandra Mardell enjoys her time on the Strictly Christmas Day special, as she will need some fond memories to get through the next month.
The actress, who is planning a wedding in the new year, has quite the strict New Year’s resolution.
“Dry Veganuary,” she says, meaning she will cut out booze and also go vegan for the month. “It’s going to be a very serious January.”
Lucky January is such a fun month otherwise, eh?
Mama Mia!
A third Mamma Mia! movie is in the pipeline, says the second film’s director Ol Parker.
He tells Screen Rant: “Judy Craymer, the genius producer behind the musical and the first two films, always plans for it to be a trilogy. There is a hunger for a third, and I know that she has a plan. Wouldn’t it be lovely?”
Fortunately, ABBA released a new album this year, so there is even more material to work with.
