Ore Oduba Opens Up About His ‘Completely Different Life’ After Personal Turmoil
Ore Oduba, the 2016 Strictly Come Dancing champion, has bravely shared the trials he’s faced in recent years, opening up about grief, divorce, and rediscovering himself.
The 39- time-old TV presenter, actor, and former cotillion winner described how his life took a dramatic turn following the end of his father and the breakdown of his marriage.
Speaking candidly on the Extraordinary Life Stories podcast, Ore revealed how he hit a low point after losing his father in October 2023.
He confessed that, at the time, he was spiralling and indeed” pressing some self-destruct buttons” because he knew he couldn’t go on living the way he’d been.
“My dad died in October 2023. And in the process of our mourning and our grieving and our going to the funeral back in Nigeria, where he lived, I realised I had lived my entire life to that point in fear. Crippling fear,” Ore told host John Reynolds.
The grief forced him to confront years of anxiety and pressure. His late father, he explained, had instilled in him a profound fear of failure, something that had fuelled his career, but at a cost.
“For the first time, I was able to look at my life as it was now, you know, oh, okay, things had to change.
And I started pressing some red buttons in my life, some self-destruct buttons, because I knew that I couldn’t carry on as it was.”
The fermentation didn’t end with his father’s death. By early 2024, Ore and his woman, Portia, announced their separation.
Reflecting on the experience, he described how the split left him questioning everything about his identity.
“My wife and I split up 12 months ago. And the life before that and the life that I’ve grown into are just … entirely different. There’s nothing, there are no similarities whatsoever.”
While he admits that moving on from such a painful chapter wasn’t easy, Ore insists that it’s been essential in helping him “find himself.” “It’s definitely painful,” he said, “but I’ve found myself.”
A major part of this transformation has been rekindling his connection with his faith. Ore explained that before his rise to fame through Strictly, he had been actively involved in prayer and spirituality.
“I wasn’t the best Christian, but I’d been very in touch with my faith up until Strictly Come Dancing.
I used to pray every Friday night until Saturday, just to put my best foot forward. I couldn’t wait to deliver a performance on Saturday night.
Obviously, things went rather well. And Joanne and I came out and won that show completely unexpectedly.
I stopped believing … I think I started to think that I was now in control of what my life was supposed to look like. The phone wasn’t going to stop ringing.”
The pandemic, he said, only intensified his struggles. “My life was literally going up in smoke before my very eyes, and I didn’t know what to do.”
Yet, through these dark times, Ore credits his return to faith as a crucial part of his recovery trip.
“I guess the next challenge is recognising that the work is never done, because there has been such a transformation in the last 12 months.
I’ve grown more in the last 12 months than I had done in my entire adult life before.”
Alongside his spiritual growth, Ore has also reignited his passion for sports, helping him rebuild a life that’s starkly different from the one
he formerly knew.
Though he doesn’t shy away from calling this chapter “ painful ”, Ore’s story is one of adaptability, tone-discovery, and reinvention.
He’s not the same man who danced his way to fame in 2016, and, by his own account, that’s a good thing.
