Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean’s real life partners and reason they never dated

If people think of ice dancing, the first names that pop into their head are Torvill and Dean.

Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean won hearts after coming first place at the 1984 Sarajevo Olympic Games.

However, their long-standing partnership looks to be coming to an end as the pair mark their 50th anniversary together.

But not much is known about their real lives, with many fans assuming that they’re together.

Have Torvill and Dean dated?

The pair admitted that they did kiss as teenagers in 1975, but it didn’t develop into anything serious.

“We were in the back of the bus going to a league match, and it just happened. It was a one-off. We never talked about it afterwards. We laugh about it now,” Jayne told the Radio Times.

Christopher added: “We were 14-years-old, and teenagers in the most naive sense. We didn’t talk about it much after.”

Why haven’t Torvill and Dean dated?

The skaters credited their dedication to their partnership and wanting to succeed as the reason things never turned romantic.

“We got close but at some point realised that we weren’t going to make a relationship off the ice in terms of a romantic one,” Christopher said.

“We had seen a lot of partnerships fail. It was a conscious decision,” he added. “The skating was everything and having a relationship just didn’t occur to us.”

Jayne Torvill

Jayne was born on 7 October 1957, making her 66 years old. She is originally from Clifton in Nottingham, England.

Outside of her partnership, she has been married for over 30 years to her husband Phil Christensen, who is an American sound engineer.

They tied the knot on 21 September 1990 and have two adopted children together – son Kieran and daughter Jessica.

Jayne has been open about her fertility struggles, her experience with an ectopic pregnancy and going through 12 months of IVF treatment.

“As a couple skating together, it’s easy for the guy to go off and start a family because it wouldn’t affect his skating,” she said on Piers Morgan’s Life Stories.

“Whereas for me, it would have stopped what we were doing, so I left it quite late and I was into my forties by then.”

She continued: “I got pregnant quite quickly and I thought, ‘Oh this is fine’. And when I went to have a scan they said I had an ectopic pregnancy, and I didn’t know what that meant.

“They said, ‘The embryo’s growing in one of the tubes’. And I said, ‘Oh, ok, so how do you get it out then?’. And they said, ‘We don’t. We can’t’.

“That’s when it hit me. So I went through the surgery and then it was obvious it was going to be more difficult.

“So we tried IVF for about a year. That, as a lot of women know, is traumatic in itself.”

Christopher Dean

Christopher was born on 27 July 1958, making him 65 years old. He is originally from Calverton in Nottinghamshire, England.

The Dancing on Ice judge was married to French-Canadian World ice dance champion Isabelle Duchesnay between 1991 and 1993.

The former couple met while he was choreographing for her and her brother Paul Duchesnay in the late 1980s.

Christopher went on to marry American skater Jill Trenary on 15 October 1994 in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

They lived together in Colorado Springs and welcomed two sons – Jack Robert and Sam Colin.

However, the pair separated, with his agent confirming the news in March 2010.

Since 2011, Christopher has been dating British ice dancer Karen Barber.

They released a joint statement about their romance after rumours began.

They said: “We have been great friends for more than 30 years. Following recent media speculation, we feel the necessity to confirm that this year has seen a change in our relationship, but we are taking things very slowly, as it is early days.

“We’d very much like to thank our dear friends, who have been so incredibly supportive to us. We both have families with children, so we ask the media to please respect their privacy.”