Singer, songwriter and Hit's Radio presenter Fleur East is set to join this year's Strictly Come Dancing cast. Fleur is the 12th contestant to be named joining an already star-studded line-up including football icon Tony Adams MBE, Britain’s Got Talent’s Molly Rainford and Hear’Say singer and soap star Kym Marsh.
The news was announced this morning (August 11) and Fleur became emotional in an interview on Lorraine saying it will be an honour as her late dad used to watch the show. The 34-year-old is no stranger to TV talent shows and said she is excited but also nervous.
Here is everything that you need to know about the former X Factor and I'm a Celebrity star and here career so far.
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Who is Fleur East?
Fleur was born in Walthamstow, London and was born to an English father and a Ghanaian mother. She has family in Yorkshire and her sister, Keshia, is a professional make-up artist.
She studied journalism and contemporary history at Queen Mary University of London and started her music career in 2005.
Career
As part of the girl group Addictiv Ladies, she rose to fame on the second series of the X Factor in 2005. Simon Cowell was chosen to be the girl band's mentor however they were eliminated in the first week.
She re-launched her career in 2011 as a solo-artist when her manager introduced her to drum-and-bass producer DJ Fresh. He also hired her as a vocalist for a BBC Radio 1 Live Lounge Session.
Fleur went on to tour with the producer after featuring on Fresh's Turn It Up song and she performed at T4 on the Beach, V Festival and iTunes Festival. She struggled in the early part of her music career however.
After working as a waitress and fitness model, Fleur found it difficult to support her music dream financially and considered giving up. It's only when she decided to re-audition for X Factor in 2014 that things began to change.
Fleur blew the judges away with her rendition of John Legend's Ordinary People in her room audition. She made it all the way through to the finals and came runner-up losing to fellow over 26s category act Ben Haenow.
The performer went on to release two full-length albums in 2015 called Love, Sax and Flashbacks and then in 2020 with her record Fearless. Her debut single Sax reached Number 3 on the Official UK Singles Chart with her first album climbing to Number 14.
In 2018 she branched out in to radio and TV presenting work which includes on Hits Radio Breakfast, Ant & Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway and ITV's game show The Void. She also made an appearance in the jungle 2013 as part of I'm a Celebrity....Get Me Out Of Here and recently had cameo acting role in Jason Sudeikis’ Apple TV hit Ted Lasso.
Her most recent song Not Alone was the official NHS charity single on 9 April 2020 with 100% of the profits going towards the COVID-19 NHS appeal.
Personal life
Fleur first met French celebrity fashion designer Marcel Badiane-Robin in 2009 when he was a waiter. The singer was not single at the time however and they didn't begin dating until 2010. They were married in Morocco in 2019 and currently have no children.
You can stay updated with Fleur's life on Instagram at her handle @fleureast where she currently has 787k followers. She also has her own podcast The Reality Of Reality TV on Planet Radio
Strictly Come Dancing is set to return to BBC One in September.
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