COMEDIAN Seann Walsh has revealed his Strictly Come Dancing love-cheat drama from 2018 returns to haunt him every time he sees or hears the word “strictly”.
Seann, 38, also refuses to dance following the scandal that blew up when he was caught kissing his professional show partner Katya Jones, 34.
In the fallout, Katya split from husband and fellow dance pro Neil Jones, 41, while Seann and actress girlfriend Rebecca Humphries, 36, also broke up.
And Seann spiralled into depression and panic attacks, and needed therapy.
He said: “I do not dance. What it is more actually is when you turn up to any car park or something, and it says, ‘Strictly No Parking’. I still just go, ‘Arghh’, every time I see it.
“I can hear the word — like a dog hearing something — I can just hear the word strictly and I still go, ‘Arghh!’”
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He says he mistakenly returned to performing before he was ready.
He told comedian Russell Howard on the Wonderbox podcast: “I went back too soon — that’s for sure. You’ve got to kind of let audiences, or the public, almost let them get over it. But I wanted to kind of fight it.
“I didn’t want this thing that was happening to my life to take away the only thing that I had.
“I would have looked unwell. I was extremely thin and gaunt. It was so difficult. The audiences didn’t know how to feel. They’d get up, they’d leave. Sometimes they’d tell me that they were appalled by me.”
Mark Rothman, owner of the The Top Secret Comedy Club, continued to book Seann and even intervened when he was recorded being heckled on stage.
Seann said: “One instance I remember where he took someone’s phone and he deleted the video that they had filmed of me having a tough time.”
He quit booze and went on to I’m A Celeb in 2022 to try to resurrect his image — and came fifth.
Seann is now a dad and in a relationship with dance teacher Grace Adderley, who he met in 2019.