Helen Skelton said her Strictly Come Dancing run changed how she saw her body after having her daughter. Speaking at the launch of her JD Williams summer edit, she tied that reflection to the moment she first walked into the show seven months after giving birth.
“I was lucky enough to do Strictly, and I'll never forget the first day walking in,” she said. Skelton added: “I was seven months after having my daughter, so I didn't know which way was up.”
Strictly in 2022
In 2022, Skelton competed on Strictly Come Dancing with Gorka Márquez and finished as a runner-up after Hamza Yassin and Jowita Przystal won the Glitterball Trophy. That result placed her run in the show’s upper tier and gave her a public platform to talk about body image while the series was still current in her mind.
She said the first-day fitting turned into a blunt lesson in how the show treats costumes and confidence. “I’ve never been so grateful,” she said of Vicky Gill putting her in a sparkly dress and lifting her boobs.
Pencil case line
Skelton said the room held a mix of women with and without children, and that the conversation quickly turned into something more direct than standard glamour. Molly Rainford and Fleur East were among the women she named as having no children, while two other women in the room did have children.
Her description was plain: “Oh my love, what's going on?” and then, “You wait guys – first of all, it's one pencil under there and then it's two and then it's a pencil case!” The joke was crude, but the point was practical: she was hearing body talk from women who were navigating the same post-childbirth reality, not a polished campaign script.
Body image after three children
Skelton said the experience changed how she looked at herself after becoming a mother. She shares three children with Richie Myler, and her youngest child, Elsie, is four years old.
“I don’t look at my body and go, 'Ooh, there's loose bits and there's saggy bits,'” she said. “Thank God I've got healthy children.” She added: “I breast-fed three children and they're all great, healthy and happy.”
That is why her current JD Williams work lands as more than a fashion job. The campaign is built around body confidence, dressing for your shape and embracing fashion in midlife, and it is backed by research of 2,000 UK women. Skelton is not selling fantasy fit; she is selling a version of confidence that starts after childbirth and survives the mirror.
“So I look at my body in a completely different way and I'm grateful for it,” she said. “I don't know if it's going to get better or worse, but it's working!”
