Exclusive: Former X Factor star Fleur East reveals the emotional strains she faced when making her West End role in Tina. Strictly helped her marriage, too.
She’s currently wowing audiences in the West End with her searing portrayal of late superstar Tina Turner at London’s Aldwych Theatre. But Strictly star Fleur East has told how the emotional difficulties of the role pushed her to the brink and caused her to break down in front of the entire cast and crew.
In an exclusive interview with OK !, the 37-year-old reveals that acting out the raw scenes of domestic abuse between Tina and her husband Ike left her feeling triggered. “During rehearsals I did the hospital scene in front of the entire company and I just broke down and I was sobbing, just sobbing,” she says. “I guess it allowed me to tap into the emotions of losing my father, I just really sobbed.”
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The star, who recently confirmed her new career goals now she’s a mum, added: “But the director thanked me for allowing myself to be vulnerable in front of so many people, because apparently it’s very hard to do. I am very green to acting.”
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Fleur, who is mum to 16-month-old daughter, Nova, lost her father Malcolm at the beginning of lockdown in March 2020. He died after suffering an unexpected heart attack.
Tina – The Tina Turner Musical follows the pop legend’s life, from growing up in the American deep south in the 1950s to becoming the Queen of Rock ‘n’ Roll, and has scenes of racial tension that Fleur, as a woman of colour, found distressing.
The N-word is a lot of the language used throughout, including the N-word, and in the beginning, when that was said to my face during rehearsals, even though it was in character, it was really difficult.
But Fleur also says she takes great inspiration from Tina’s life journey. “Her story shows that a woman’s career doesn’t have to be over at 40 — in fact Tina’s career took off in her mid-forties. There can be an ageist attitude in showbiz that it’s all over at 40, but at 40 women are in their prime. If you’d told me a year ago that I’d be performing in the West End a year after giving birth I would have laughed. But Tina’s a great example that you can still keep pushing and still make it happen.”
Former X Factor competitor Fleur, who shot to fame as a solo act on the ITV talent show in 2014, will continue playing Tina until September, after which she’ll return to her role hosting Strictly Come Dancing spin-off show It Takes Two , alongside Janette Manrara.
Having also competed on Strictly , finishing as a runner-up in 2022 partnered with Vito Coppola, Fleur, who has been married for six years to French fashion designer Marcel Badiane-Robin, knows only too well the rumours of the show’s famous “curse”. But the singer has some advice for upcoming contestants.
Staying attached to whatever your reality is, she says, is the only way to avoid the Strictly curse. “Because with all these shows — Strictly, the jungle and so on — it’s really intense and it’s like a bubble and it’s easy to think, ‘ Oh this is my life. ‘ However, it isn’t authentic. My husband and sister were the two in the audience every night when I was on Strictly, every live performance for three months.
In fact, for Fleur, the show helped spice up her marriage, and she says that far from falling victim to the curse, the chance to shine was a tonic for their relationship.
Put the “strategy” back into our relationship, she advises me and my husband, “because you’re feeling really fit, your partner is watching you perform at the weekend, and you’re looking amazing because of your amazing wardrobe and make-up team.” There’s a certain quality to falling in love with your partner when you see your partner excelling in a task, and you can’t help but feel proud of them.
The Walthamstow-born star comes from a close-knit family and since the death of her father, she has grown even closer to her mother, Irene, and sister Keshia, with whom she has a haircare brand, Kurl Kitchen. Indeed, Fleur says that her family keep her grounded and she avoids the pitfalls of fame by involving them in all her career decisions.
“Whenever I have an offer I always sit my family down and tell them all about the opportunity. I take their opinions and listen to their arguments while we talk about the benefits and drawbacks. I frequently wear my husband’s clothing on the red carpet because he is a fashion designer. It’s really important to involve my family in my journey”.
Brought up in the 90s in a mixed-race family — her mother is from Ghana and her late father was English — Fleur says she was delighted to see Meghan Markle join the House of Windsor.
“When Meghan married Harry, that was such a big deal in our family, because my mum used to joke when I was growing up that she wanted me to marry Prince William. She’d say, ‘One day you’ll marry Prince William,’ and I’d say, ‘Mum, there’s zero chance of that.’ So when Meghan married Harry, we all thought, ‘Wow, this is major.’ I’ll never forget the ceremony and seeing the Black priest in St George’s Chapel and the gospel choir — for me it was a huge moment for the royal family.”
Fleur, who described herself as “very nervous” when she performed for the royal family at the VE Day celebrations earlier this year, hopes Meghan and Harry will come back to the royal fold and be back on the Buckingham Palace balcony one day.
“I don’t really follow As Ever, but I still think it’s great that Meghan is there as a brown princess. Hopefully they can patch things up with the King. There’s so much we don’t know, we don’t know the relationships and what’s going on behind the scenes.”
Away from the bright lights of the showbiz circuit, Fleur is also fully immersed in motherhood, following the arrival of her daughter Nova last March.
“I had a home birth, it was hard because I had no other form of pain relief but gas and air — and the gas and air only arrived in the last few hours”, she recalls. It was very difficult because I had to use a completely different area of my brain to overcome it. My husband provided incredible support. I was just rolling around naked on the floor until my daughter arrived. However, I consider myself fortunate that nothing wrong happened.
Fleur claims that she is happy to be naked at home because of her upbringing and lacks body confidence issues from growing up. “As it’s been really hot recently, in the house I’ve just been walking around naked”, she says. My husband said, “Look at you, just walking around naked! ” while laughing at me.
And I say, “I had a mother who did the same for me when I was a child.” Mum was very confident and she just walked around naked and it was never spoken about. She never exhibited any body shyness or awareness; after having me and my sister, it was typical to see my mother’s stomach covered in stretchmarks.
“I just had a baby, so I’ve got stretchmarks now.” In a way I am very grateful to my mum for that because I never had body confidence issues growing up and now I am doing the same for my child”.
