Strictly’s Angela Rippon, 78, stuns viewers as she stretches her leg over her HEAD during incredible first performance – after making history as show’s oldest ever contestant

By William On Sep 23, 2023

Strictly’s Angela Rippon, 78, stuns viewers as she stretches her leg over her HEAD in incredible first performance – after making history as the show’s oldest ever contestant

By Geraint Llewellyn for Mailonline

Published: 2:21 PM EDT, September 23, 2023 | Updated: 2:40 PM EDT, September 23, 2023

Strictly’s Angela Rippon showed off her incredible flexibility as she stretched her leg over her head during her first performance on Saturday.

The announcer, 78, who has made history as the show’s oldest ever contestant, took the floor with professional partner Kai Widdrington, 28, for a very energetic Cha Cha.

Angela looked sensational in a silver fringe mini dress as she performed to Shirley Bassey’s cover of Pink’s Get The Party Started before kicking her partner and lifting her leg for the dramatic finale.

Impressing, the duo scored 28 for their performance, briefly putting them at the top of the leaderboard.

On Twitter, one fan said: “I need some tips from Angela Rippon. I would love to dance like her and I’m literally half her age!’.

Skills: Strictly’s Angela Rippon, 78, showed off her incredible flexibility as she stretched her leg over her head during her first performance on Saturday

Wow: The presenter, who made history as the show’s oldest ever contestant, took the floor with professional partner Kai Widdrington, 28, for a very energetic Cha Cha

While a second wrote: ‘Angela Rippon’s leg though!’.

Someone else joked: “When I grow up I want to be Angela Rippon.”

And: ‘I want Angela Rippon’s legs!’.

It comes after Angela admitted she finds Strictly training ‘very grueling’ and her legs ‘feel like they’re going to collapse.’

In a new interview, Angela shed some light on how her training with professional partner Kai is going.

She said The mirror: ‘My legs feel like they are about to collapse.

‘I know what I should do, I know what it should feel like, it makes my legs work to the music. I just get angry and frustrated.”

Angela continued, “I’m exhausted. There are pieces of me that hurt that I didn’t know I had. I enjoy doing it and I like the things I do well. But I get really angry with myself when I totally mess up and do it wrong.”

Sensational: Angela looked sensational in a silver fringe mini dress as she performed on Shirley Bassey’s cover of Pink’s Get The Party Started before kicking her partner and lifting her leg for the dramatic finale

Great stuff: Impressing, the duos scored 28 for their performance, briefly putting them at the top of the leaderboard

Glamour: Angela started the performance dramatically with a long, feather-trimmed cape before heading to the floor

I loved it: Delighted fans raced to social media after the performance

She recently revealed the secret to her famously flexible physique as she prepared to become the oldest ever contestant on Strictly Come Dancing.

Speaking to MailOnline, Angela admitted she is ‘nervous and apprehensive’ about taking part in Strictly, with viewers set to discover her professional partner on the launch show.

The presenter added that the physical demands of her work have kept her fit ‘all her life’.

Angela told MailOnline: ‘I’ve stayed fit all my life, for the work I do. You have to stay fit to do what we do because you never know what you will be asked to do next. A lot of things I’ve done on television have been more physical.

“You know, you might have thought twice about diving with great white sharks or swimming with orcas, so you never know what you’re going to do.

‘I have done programs where I was on my feet for twelve hours. And that is only possible if you are fit. I just stayed fit and strong, I guess.”

Angela’s Strictly stint comes 47 years after she stunned the 27 million viewers of Morecambe and Wise’s 1976 Christmas special by emerging from her newsreader’s desk and performing a racy dance routine, in an era when journalists never ventured into light entertainment.