Inside Dancing on Ice’s Jayne Torvill’s ‘traumatic’ history and life off screen

Jayne has been happily married for 35 years

Jayne Torvill is an expert judge on ITV’s Dancing on Ice(Image: WireImage)

Dancing on Ice judge Jayne Torvill, 67 is best known for her ice-skating partnership with Christopher Dean, 66. The pair from Nottingham captured the nation’s heart when they won gold with the iconic dance routine to ‘Bolero’ at the Sarajevo 1984 Winter Olympics. Since, they have become familiar faces on ITV’s Dancing on Ice as expert judges.

Despite their professional successes as a pair, Jayne and Christopher have never been in a romantic relationship with each other. In fact, Jayne has been happily married to husband Phil Christensen since 1990 and the couple have two children.

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However, Jayne has been open about her struggles to conceive. Back in 2013, the ice-skater shared her experiences of an ectopic pregnancy and subsequent IVF attempts as she appeared on ITV’s Life Stories, hosted by Piers Morgan.

She said: “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.”

The doctors informed her that “the embryo’s growing in one of the tubes”. Jayne said she asked them: “So how do you get it out then?”, to which they replied: “We don’t. We can’t.”

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The heart-breaking news meant Jayne turned to IVF with hopes of trying another way to have a baby. She said: “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.” Despite her attempts at IVF, Jayne and Phil later welcomed children Jessica and Kieran through adoption.

Also on Piers Morgan’s show, she talked about gender struggles as a female skater wanting to have children. She said: “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. 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.”

The now 67-year old announced she will be retiring this year. In a joint statement made last February, Jayne and Chris announced the Torvill & Dean: Our Last Dance tour which will kick off at London’s OVO Arena in Wembley on April 12.

The skaters said: “Whilst we will continue to work together off the ice, this will be the final time we will skate together following our 50-year partnership. But not without celebrating one final time with all of our incredible fans across the UK, who have supported us constantly over many years.”

Jayne and Christopher are on the judging panel for the latest series of ITV’s Dancing on Ice. The show features a star-studded line-up including fan favourite Michaela Strachan, EastEnders’ Charlie Brooks, Olympic rower Sir Steve Redgrave, TOWIE’s Dan Edgar, and reality TV personality Ferne McCann.