Inside secret heartbreak that inspired Strictly’s Jayde Adams to insist she was paired with a woman

IT was one of the most emotional performances the Strictly ballroom has ever seen.

Jayde Adams moved the judges to tears with her American Smooth dedicated to her beloved sister who died from brain cancer.

The 37-year-old comic paid tribute to her older sister Jenna, her partner at disco-dancing contests in their youth and the inspiration behind her Strictly journey — as well as her career as a comedian.

Jayde had the BBC studio enraptured as she and partner Karen Hauer performed an uncharacteristically emotional dance to Bette Midler’s Wind Beneath My Wings.

Head judge Shirley Ballas said afterwards: “Jayde, I feel like you’re my hero.

“Everything I’ve watched about you and everything I see on the floor, you represented in this number, everyone who’s lost a loved one, and I’m just really, really emotional.”

Former Adele impersonator Jayde told on Saturday night how she wanted to honour her sister, who died from a seizure in April 2011, six years into brain cancer treatment.

She said: “Wind Beneath My Wings was made famous by Bette Midler, who was mine and my sister Jenna’s favourite musician when we were growing up.

“We’d make up dances to Bette in my parents’ living room.

“I didn’t just lose my sister, I lost my best friend, I lost my dance partner.”

The tribute seemed only fitting as the comic revealed how her sister shaped her life choices, from becoming a comedian to insisting on a same-sex partner on Strictly.

Boisterous Jayde hadn’t always been so outgoing — and through childhood she relied on talented dancer Jenna to fight her corner.

In the award-winning BBC current affairs series exploring the opinions and issues affecting the nation, We Are England, Jayde said: “My sister loved me more than anyone has ever loved me.

“People have never understood me, but she did and she protected me.”

In another interview she revealed how her sister would physically defend her against bullies, explaining: “One time a lad at school smacked me in the stomach with a hockey stick.

"My sister found out, came charging through the corridors and beat seven bells out of him.

“She used to fight all my battles, so much so that when she died I didn’t know who or what I was.”

As children, some of the Strictly contestant’s happiest memories centred around contests and lessons from their disco dance-teaching aunt Julie.

She said: “I wasn’t terrible at it, but I was fat.

"Mum shoved me in skintight Lycra because she didn’t want me to feel different, she wanted to protect my self-esteem, which I had a lot of.

CHANGED FOREVER

“My sister, however — slim, athletic, the perfect disco dancer — didn’t have much confidence.

“So we weren’t that successful, apart from this one time.

"We danced in these costumes and did so well a tunnel of people was waiting for us when we finished, applauding and going, ‘Oh my God!

"You’re amazing!’ That was huge for me.”

Jayde told ahead of Strictly’s launch how she chose to have a same-sex partner in tribute to Jenna.

She said: “The last time I danced was actually with my sister . . . so this felt really natural for me.”

Jayde, who loved musical theatre at school, left her native Bristol to study drama in Wales.

Then one day during her time there she received 17 missed calls from her older brother Kane.

She said: “He never, ever called. When I got through to him he told me Jenna had collapsed in a fit.”

Rushing to be by her sister’s side, Jayde was there as Jenna received the grim news she had a brain tumour.

Jayde said: “She grabbed my hand and said, ‘Can you keep making everyone laugh, Jayde?

"'Lighten it up a bit’, and that sort of became my job as she was going through the treatment.”

Jenna had brain surgery and chemotherapy, which changed her for ever. Jayde explained: “When Jenna had a biopsy they took out 52 per cent of the brain tumour.

"It was a major trauma, so she was different afterwards. She used to repeat herself and do things like put her phone in the fridge.”

In the years that followed Jayde remained close to her sister and was bridesmaid at her wedding.

But the strain of her illness took its toll on Jenna’s other friendships.

Jayde revealed: “A lot of people in her life couldn’t handle the shift and took a step away. Jenna was quite lonely when she died.”

After six years of treatment, Jenna had a sudden seizure which was to lead to her death.

Jayde said: “Seeing her in hospital at the end, hooked up to machines, was awful, as was seeing my parents’ sadness.

“But I still joked around, scolding her for having bad eyebrows. She died that same day.”

She later added: “It always sounds trite when I say it like this, but it’s true.

"It was around my sister’s deathbed where I was making everyone laugh that I knew that I should be a comedian.”

In the days and weeks that followed Jayde used her sense of humour to get through grief.

She said: “Jenna’s funeral was the best stand-up gig I’ve done in my life. During her eulogy, I made the whole church laugh.

“It helped that our vicar kept getting Jenna’s name mixed up with mine.

“She told a congregation of 400 people that Jayde had died and that I was ‘leaving Jenna and Kane, Mum and Dad’.

"I turned around and went, ‘What the f**k is going on?’ It brought the house down.” After Jenna’s death, Jayde went on tour as a drag-act version of Adele.

But her parents told how she struggled without her older sis.

Mum Gail told in the We Are England series: “It’s been just as bad for Jayde to deal with the loss of Jenna as us.

“You don’t get over losing a child. You just live with it.”

Dad David added: “Jayde suffered a lot when Jenna passed away.

“Jenna was always an outlet for Jayde. She was always there for her. It was really tough for her, tough for all of us.”

Jayde found success in the comedy circuit three years later, winning the 2014 Funny Women prize.

Jayde said: “It took two years for the sadness to start to lift but, when it did, I began seeing life differently.”

She soon began appearing on TV panel shows such as 8 Out Of 10 Cats, before presenting food show Snackmasters and filming Bafta-winning show Alma’s Not Normal.

She got together with fellow comedian Rich Wilson in 2017 but their love was not to last.

TWO YEARS OF SADNESS

Jayde admitted they had couples therapy in 2020, adding: “We’re two very complicated people that have come together with a massive load of baggage and we’re expecting the other person to know every answer to fix that baggage. It’s just not possible.”

She added: “It’s not that I don’t love him and I don’t fancy him, because I do, something rotten.

“But we are coming in and out of arguments too much at the moment.”

Comedian and podcast host Rich hinted that lockdown proved too much for them.

On his podcast Insane In The Fem Brain, he said: “I got a job working for my mate’s clothing company, that helped. So I was out of the house every day.

“We were in our little bubble so I got to do that and keep away so that kind of took the pressure off a little bit in the last lockdown.

“We would have killed each other.

“She did a set when we first went back out and it was all about how she would get away with killing me.

“I went ‘All right, yeah, we need to have a chat’.”

Although it seems they are on friendly terms, it’s not known if Jayde attended Rich’s recent wedding to comic Kate McGann.

Jayde last year bought a house in the Bedminster area of Bristol, which she is currently in the process of renovating.

The move dredged up old emotions around her sister’s death.

She said: “I followed her around for my whole life, followed her lead, and when she died I had to do it all by myself.

“Losing my sister wasn’t about freestyle disco-dancing.

“It was about losing my sister I grew up with.

“Coming back here, it was a huge portion of our life together. You forget all of that as you get older.

“I feel really thankful about the sort of life that I’ve had because, without it, I just wouldn’t be doing what I’m doing.”