Paul Merton has addressed the rumour that he was the reason Sir Bruce Forsyth was hired to host Strictly Come Dancing, stating: “It wasn’t quite like that.”
It’s long been claimed that the comedian was one of the reasons the BBC decided Forsyth should lead the Saturday night dance competition when it launched in 2004.
His hiring came shortly after Merton recruited Forsyth to be a guest presenter on satirical panel show Have I Got News for You, which is believed to have put him on the BBC’s radar to co-host Strictly alongside Tess Daly.
Merton was asked in a new interview if he was responsible for getting Forsyth the job, to which he told Saga Magazine: “I asked if we could have Bruce as a guest presenter on Have I Got News for You in 2003 and he was brilliant, a consummate professional, as you’d expect.”
Merton continued: “That seemed to reignite his career and the following year he landed Strictly.”
He added that, while he has “no idea if I had anything to do with” Forsyth’s hiring, he “would be extremely honoured” if he did “because he was a lovely man”.
At the time of Forsyth’s appearance on Have I Got News for You, the entertainer’s career, which was launched in the 1950s, was starting to wane.
He spent the previous decades hosting game shows including The Generation Game, Play Your Cards Right and The Price Is Right. It was Strictly that put him back on primetime television.
Forsyth returned to Have I Got News for You as guest host in 2010 and, in 2013, he became the oldest person to perform at Glastonbury Festival, aged 85.
The presenter, who stepped down as host of Strictly’s live shows in 2014, made his final TV appearance on a Children in Need-themed Strictly special n November 2015.
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His health soon deteriorated and he died of bronchial pneumonia aged 89 on 18 August 2017.
Two weeks later, Strictly host Daly paid tribute to Forsyth during that year’s launch show, stating: “There is one person in our hearts, and we want to do him proud.”
Claudia Winkleman, who replaced Forsyth as Daly’s co-host, added: “We all miss him dreadfully.”
Ahead of his death, Forsyth admitted that Strictly had limited his talents. He told Hello: “On the Generation Game, for example, I could have fun – I was allowed to be ‘Loose Bruce’. I could do whatever I liked and interact with whomever.
“That’s the real me. A presenter on Strictly isn’t the real Bruce.”
