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Pop singer Will Young has claimed he was “pressured” to continue competing in Strictly Come Dancing by his team, after asking to pull out due to extreme agoraphobia.
The “Jealousy” star – who rose to fame after winning the inaugural series of TV contest Pop Idol – dropped out after three weeks on the BBC show in 2016, citing personal reasons.
At the time, Young said he left the contest with “joy in my heart that I have been able to take part in one of the most loved shows on British television".
Speaking with Rylan Clark on his BBC podcast How To Be In The Spotlight about his time on Strictly, Young said: "I tried to pull out of it, but I was sort of pressured to do it.
"It was sort of like ‘Well, if you pull out, the BBC will never work with you again’.
"That was one of the things that was said to me, so I did it, but I knew I wasn’t well enough."
He continued: "You know, when you’re getting flashbacks and all those kind of things, for me, it was agoraphobia.
"So agoraphobia was really bad for me. So literally throughout that stage, I didn’t even know where I was.
"I’m on that show. If you ever watch it back, I was not even in the room.”
Young, who was paired with professional dancer Karen Clifton, said friends were messaging him to say he wasn’t well, and he tried to quit the competition.
He decided to end his time on the show after performing a Bollywood routine, which he said he was still “really proud of”.
The 45-year-old suggested the pressure from his team was in part money-driven: “I didn’t necessarily have the most supportive people behind me at that stage."
Strictly is currently embroiled in controversy following multiple allegations of abusive and inappropriate behaviour behind the scenes.
Two of the show’s professional dancers, Graziano Di Prima and Giovanni Pernice, have been dropped from its lineup ahead of the new season’s launch this autumn. A number of former contestants, including actor Amanda Abbington and former Love Island host Laura Whitmore, have come forward to speak about their experiences.
In a recent interview with The Independent, Young spoke about how the breakdown he suffered after Strictly, which he traced back to his experiences at boarding school, led to years of therapy as well as visits to a shaman.
“The climate of violence was unbelievable: kids having their heads smashed against metal railings, children being thrown downstairs, kicked in the stomach,” he recalled. “Drunk teachers. It was hell.”
He said he would continue to speak about it: “I said to my former prep school, ‘If you don’t pay for my treatment for trauma, I’m going to just keep on talking about this.’ Even though I sent them a lawyer’s letter, which they didn’t reply to for a whole year, I was like, ‘Fine, but I will never shut up about this.”
His new album, Light It Up, is released on 9 August.
Additional reporting by Press Association
