4 March 2007
I DITCHED MY THONG ..NOW I'M STRICTLY NUDE
EXCLUSIVE: ICE DANCING KYRAN REVEALS ALL
Hot stuff... our girl Lara on the ice with Kyran (Pic: Nicholas Bowman)
HE CAN cope with moisturiser. He can cope with fake tan. He can even cope with having to shave his chest and wearing skin-tight lycra tops.
But the one thing hunky rugby star Kyran Bracken draws the line at for his appearances in TV's Dancing On Ice is... wearing a thong.
"I've got no interest in them. I put one on, and it was really tight," says the man who has melted millions of hearts in the hit show.
"I just wasn't used to wearing something in that area - so I kept trying to pull it out. It was disrupting everything. So from now on I'm going commando!"
Heart-throb Kyran, 35, reveals his undercover secret to me just minutes after we take to the ice during an amazing day when I stand in for his pro skating partner Melanie Lambert.
First I turn up at Elstree Studios in Hertfordshire where the Saturday night skate sensation is filmed, to be confronted by TWO stars of the series. As I lace up my boots, West End singer Bonnie Langford - one of the stars of Dancing On Ice in 2006 - pops her head into the room and offered to lend me her skate covers.
Within minutes I'm reclining in a chair with Kyran tending to one boot as Bonnie straps me into the other. Then it's on to the ice for a masterclass - and his revelation about what he ISN'T wearing under his trousers. It's a big decision about smalls... but one that the ex-England scrum half is hoping will pay off as the icy competition hots up.
Kyran has been the dark horse of the show since it started in January. With no previous skating experience, he has relied on grit and determination to creep up the leaderboard and become favourite to win the show, which ends next week. More than eight million viewers have been been tuning in every Saturday night to see butch rugby players and macho footballers slip into their skin-tight lycra and fight over fake tan. And as the eight-week series draws to a close, the buffing, grooming and preening is getting even more intense.
Kyran tells me with a chuckle: "I started shaving my chest early on. There was no way I was going to start waxing. And in the last few weeks I've come home on a Friday night after training with a spray fake tan, a variety of skin-tight outfits and full make-up!
"I didn't even know what spray tans were before this show. I knew there were creams you could get, but then they brought out the spray gun it was quite a surprise. If I wasn't on TV every week, I think my wife would be worried. She's not used to me being vain. She thought she had married this macho rugby player.
"My usual routine would be get up, wash my face and go. These days I'm more likely to come home and moisturise my whole body, to make sure my fake tan develops evenly.
"Sportsmen are naturally competitive. We hate losing, that's why we do so well in these kind of shows.
"And retired sportsmen have a lot of spare time. I haven't had a 9-5 job since I retired from rugby three years ago. I'm a bit of a man of leisure.
"Except when my wife leaves me with the kids for the day. Now that IS hard work. While one's is pooing, the other is being sick, while one's laughing, the other's crying. I'm screaming by the end, 'Get me back to work'. This is a breeze in comparison!"
Kyran wed former solicitor Victoria in St Albans, Herts, in 2001 after meeting in a London nightclub. They now live in Barnet, North London, with one-year-old Jack and three-year-old Charlie.
As the couple head towards six years of married life, it sounds like lucky Victoria, 30, is reaping the rewards of her husband's tough new fitness regime.
"Before the show I was a 34in waist, now I'm down to a 31in," Kyran tells me. "I was fit already because of my rugby, but I've lost three-quarters of a stone since we started training four months ago. My bum's smaller and my abs have made a surprise re-appearance."
But as enticing as Kyran's new image sounds, it seems Victoria could face some competition for her husband's affections.
AS WE try another potentially bone-cracking manoeuvre, Kyran confesses to harbouring a secret soft spot for his Dancing On Ice co-stars - in particular Emmerdale's Aussie bombshell Emily Symons.
"I have very fond memories of Emily when she played Marilyn in Home & Away. I told her very early on in the series that I used to half-fancy her back then. She's lovely. What a smile! My dance partner Melanie is lovely too. She's very attractive, but she's married to Kay Burley's dancer Fred - and he's like an Armani model.
"But I'm a very happily married man. And when you're a married man, you're not supposed to have crushes on anyone!"
Focusing his attention back on his domestic life, Kyran tells me how his enthusiasm for skating doesn't just extend to his shrinking waistline.
It seems eldest son Charlie has also caught the Dancing On Ice bug. "Charlie is completely mad about skating. I've already taken him to a local rink to have a go and he absolutely loved it. I asked him if he wanted to be a rugby player or a skater and he said skater. At home he says 'Daddy, daddy, can we do a routine?' Then I have to pick him up and spin him around.
"Then he says, 'I'll do the bow now Daddy', and he bows and we all clap him."
As we leave the ice together, I feel like doing the same... to lovely Kyran.
Sundaymirror
