STRICTLY star Annabel Croft has confessed she cries every day while training for the show as she grieves her husband’s death.
The tennis legend’s husband Mel passed away from stomach cancer back in May.
Now Annabel is preparing for one of the UK’s most famous dance competitions, but the 57-year-old is finding it hard to cope with the devastation of her partner not being by her side anymore.
She told the Daily Mail that the night before her debut on Strictly she found herself sobbing, wishing Mel could be there to see it.
She said: “I just sat and cried. Mel was my biggest supporter, my protector. He gave me confidence.
“He made things right, always had done. I wanted to talk to him. I wanted to say: ‘I am really nervous for tomorrow, but I don’t have you to make it OK.’
“It was a weird scenario. I was about to go out in front of millions of people and be jolly and happy but I was sobbing, thinking: ‘I don’t know where you are, Mel. Where have you gone?'”
The couple were married for 36 years before Mel passed away, and he was the first serious boyfriend she ever had.
So it’s no wonder that she was left ‘wailing in the car park’ after his diagnosis.
His rapid decline was a shock to the whole family, as Mel only lived for three months after docs realised he had cancer.
Annabel added: “It’s unthinkable. How can someone disappear in three months? We didn’t even know he was ill.
“Poor Mel was the one who’d been told he was going to die, and he was comforting me. Three months later, I was picking up a death certificate and our three children were having to process the fact their dad’s name was on there.
“I’ve cried every day since Mel died.”
But the brave former sportswoman is going ahead with her role in the reality show, which she says has brought a “glimmer of happiness” back into her life.
