03-05-2025
BBC Strictly Come Dancing star admits she 'cracked' and had 'full breakdown'
A former Strictly Come Dancing star admitted she "cracked" and had a "full breakdown" just days into a charity trek.
TV presenter Angela Scanlon has bravely opened up about the challenges she faced while taking part in the CoppaFeel! charity trek, alongside Emma Willis, Sara Davis and Candice Brown.
Despite her happy public persona, she confessed to often feelings isolated - and revealed she hit breaking point when trekking the Himalayas in India last November.
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Angela, who was a team leader, said she felt overwhelmed by the experience within days of beginning the challenge, the Mirror reports.
In a Substack post, she said: "A couple of days in - I cracked. Full breakdown. Ugly crying into my yak-themed duvet."
She had hoped to be there to motivate the female trekkers with breast cancer but said: "What the actual f**k was I thinking?
"How arrogant was I to believe I'm equipped to hold these brilliant women at such a tender time?
"I was lonely. Not the cute, 'oh I miss my mates' lonely. The hollow, I have an incredible following of 436K people on Instagram, a full family life, a busy work life and still feel like I'm shouting-into-a-void kind of lonely.
Angela said the feelings must have been hitting her on and off for years - maybe even forever - but it led to her launching a grassroots community called Hot Messers.
Explaining the idea of the walking group, she said: "The kind where you turn up in joggers, cry on a bench if you need to, and nobody blinks. The kind where you don't need to filter yourself to fit."
Angela had previously admitted she was "riddled" with anxiety when she landed BBC's The One Show gig.
Her book, Joyrider details how frantic she was at having to deal with her anxiety in private, instead of telling her production team.
"It was too late to backtrack, so I spent a long and lonely stint never once expressing fear or asking for the help of support I so desperately needed," she said.
"I had built myself a little cage and wouldn't let anyone in. The team were amazing, but I was riddled with anxiety."
