Debbie McGee thinks it would be ‘wonderful’ if love ‘happens’ again and late husband Paul Daniels would approve
There was a spark between her and her ex-Strictly dance partner Giovanni Pernice but it's just a special friendship.
DEBBIE McGEE’S breast cancer scare has left her determined to live life to the full — and ready to find love again.
The Strictly Come Dancing star, 60, says her late husband, magician Paul Daniels, gave her his blessing to move on — and even joked about her finding a new man.
The Sun revealed yesterday that Debbie had undergone surgery to remove two tumours in her left breast.
In an exclusive interview with The Sun on Sunday, she says: “I feel like I’m the luckiest person in the world.
“It’s made me think even more to make the most of today and I would say I’m open to finding love again.
“It’s the same with my career. I let things happen and that’s what I think about meeting someone else.
“If it happens, it happens. If it doesn’t, it doesn’t. But how wonderful if it did.”
Debbie lost TV favourite Paul, her husband of 28 years, in March 2016.
The magician, who was 77, died just a month after learning he had an incurable brain tumour.
She says the telly legend told her he wanted her to find love again.
Debbie reveals: “He would want me to find love again, yeah. With him being so much older than me, we did talk about that.
“We used to joke because I had a great-uncle who married someone much younger than him — then she died of a brain haemorrhage suddenly before him, when she was quite young.
“So I always joked with Paul that could happen to me, or I could get run over by a car or something.
And he said, ‘Yes, but the statistics are that it’s bound to be me first’.
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Debbie McGee
“He always used to say, ‘But I know you’ll cope’. And he said, ‘I hope you do meet somebody else. I don’t want you to be on your own for the rest of your life’. He always said, ‘I know you’ll cope.’ ”
Debbie’s Berkshire home is a shrine to her late husband. As well as a surprisingly macho topless headshot of Paul taking pride of place in the kitchen, there is a chair bearing his engraved initials in the living room.
His wand and magic books sit on the mantelpiece.
And Debbie says she still feels very much connected to Paul, often wondering what he would say to her at particular moments.
Asked if she spoke to him during her cancer treatment, Debbie says: “I thought of him.
“The only time I talk to Paul is when there are certain situations I have to make a decision on.
“I do sometimes think, ‘What would you have said, darling? What would you have done in this situation?’ I do think like that. It’s almost asking him — you know, saying, ‘Right, what would you have done?’”
She continues: “There are so many times when I’m doing something and I think he’d be proud that I’m doing this and I’m doing it correctly and doing different things.
“Sometimes I’ll be watching something or listening to something on the radio and when Paul was alive, I would have rung him and said, ‘You’ll love this, put this on’ and he would do the same to me. I haven’t got that person to ring any more.”
After starring as the Fairy Godmother in Sleeping Beauty at Wolverhampton’s Grand Theatre either side of Christmas, Debbie says: “Pantomime was so successful and I was top of the bill for the first time on my own in my life and we did great business.
“Paul would have loved that success for me and wasn’t there to share it.”
Though Debbie has been pictured on nights out with so-called “mystery men”, she has not been on any dates since Paul died. She says: “I’ve got male friends I’ve been to dinner with but I haven’t actually been on any dates.
“I haven’t had many offers because I think people have respect for you. Well, they certainly seem to with me! People are just lovely to me. I just always feel like I’m the luckiest person in the world.”
One person linked romantically to Debbie was her hunky Strictly partner Giovanni Pernice. Aged 28, Giovanni is 32 years younger than Debbie.
The pair shrugged off rumours of a romance when Debbie danced with him during the 2017 BBC1 series. But she agrees there is a “spark” between them.
She says: “We have a very special relationship because we absolutely adore each other, but it certainly wasn’t a romance. Once or twice in your life, you meet someone you totally respect, you totally get on with. I can’t describe what it is or why it happens. Every time I saw Giovanni last year — and when I danced with him on his tour — there’s some sort of electricity that happens that I can’t describe.
“It just happens with us. We’re just so happy to be together but it’s not romance. It’s just this special friendship and I know we would always be there for each other.”
Despite their obvious closeness, Debbie did not confide in the dance pro about her cancer scare.
She says: “I haven’t told many other people apart from my family. We’re in touch quite a bit and he’s on the arena tour at the moment.
“So we haven’t been in touch as much because they’re busy but we’ve still been in touch. We send each other jokes and different things and make each other laugh still.” Debbie says she has yet to meet Giovanni’s new girlfriend — 2018 Strictly star and former Pussycat Doll Ashley Roberts, 37.
She says: “I haven’t seen Giovanni since the new series of Strictly began because I was really busy and he was starting the show.
“I’ve seen him once because I came along to one of the recordings after Blackpool but I had to go because I was working the next day, so I didn’t stay in the green room very long.
“So no, I didn’t really get to meet many people. I just spoke to all the ones I knew and I got to meet Faye Tozer but I didn’t get to meet Ashley.”
Debbie made the Strictly final with Giovanni in 2017 and was known for her glamorous looks each week.
But following her cancer scare, Debbie says she is now keen to embrace any wrinkles. She says: “It makes me feel lucky that I didn’t have to have more (treatment) done than I had.
“I suppose I’ve had to accept that I’m getting older and it doesn’t matter how slim you are or that I’m starting to get wrinkles and things.
“Of course, I was always aware of how I looked because I like dressing up. I’m not a very good ‘casual’ person — things have to match!
“But what it has made me feel — and what getting older has made me feel — is that it doesn’t matter if you’ve got no make-up on. I have just become much more comfortable (in myself).” And Debbie has no intention of stepping back from showbiz just yet. She says: “I’ve always been someone who wants to throw themselves into things.
“My whole life I’ve wanted to be in showbusiness.
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“When I was a little girl, I never played with dolls but I read books about being in showbusiness. There isn’t anything else I’ve wanted to do.
“People often used to say to Paul and I, ‘Why are you still working?’ We always said, ‘Because we love it’.
“And that’s still the same now. I want to make the most of it.”
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