Singer and Britain's Got Talent judge Alesha Dixon says age is just a number and she is still often the last one dancing on a night out. The 46-year-old insists she can still ‘out-dance a lot of people’ and loves the chance to party. Speaking to Women's Health, she said: “If the music’s playing and I love the music, there’s no shutting me up or sitting me down. Even at the age that I am now, I can out-dance and out-party a lot of people. But I don’t need a packed club to have fun, it could be in a friend’s house, it could be at home.
"Dancing has always played a major part in my joy…I always call myself an original raver because I’ve always been somebody who loves going out. That’s how I started MC-ing in the first place; I was in these dances or clubs or raves where that energy was just so infectious.”. Despite still enjoying dancing, Alesha sometimes wishes she could go clubbing in the noughties again when she felt freer. She explains: “Sometimes I just want to go and rave like it’s 2000…I always say to my friends when I go out, if you can’t find me, go to the DJ booth. I’ll be right there. I’m like a magnet towards the microphone and before I know it, I’m on the mic.
"And then you wake up the next day and it’s all over Instagram and you go, ‘Oh God’. And it’s fine, but you just want to be in the moment – and then it’s on Instagram Stories.". She added: "Some of my favourite times were when we were in and out of clubs and DJs were playing our records. Why? was a massive club hit and we’d be in the middle of the dance floor raving to our own song and no one knew who we were…I feel like [as] time goes on, the more people respect what we’ve achieved because they realise it’s like lightning in a bottle.".
Alesha will once again be joining Simon Cowell, Amanda Holden and Bruno Tonioli later this month on Britain's Got Talent to judge a mixture of acts hoping to make their mark. Looking back she says the life for a breakthrough brand like Mis-Teeq that she sang in was different to how it is today:. She said: “We felt like we won the lottery because we were an unknown band just grafting and still so young. In our day, you had to put in more graft. Now an artist can do one interview and seed it out to the world. Back then, you’d have to go to every single radio station, you’d have to do every TV show, which is why we never had a life.”.
Last year Alesha was back on stage performing ‘Ransom’ on Britain’s Got Talent and she enjoyed the experience. She said: “It was like my two worlds met and I felt so alive. I felt at home, surrounded by everybody that I know and love. And then I got to perform, which is my first love, and it was just such a beautiful moment for me. I just thought, ‘Oh my God, I’ve missed performing so much.’ And I did say to myself after that performance...’Girl, you need to get back on stage more because that’s what makes you feel alive.”’.
Away from TV, Alesha reportedly split from her partner of 18 years, Azuka Ononye, last year. The pair are now co-parenting their two daughters - Azura, 11, and Anaya, four. Like other celebrity mums including Emma Willis, Alesha is aiming to delay the introduction of phones to her daughters for as long as possible. Alesha said: “As long as we can avoid our daughters having phones, we’re going to try our hardest. [Azura, 11] can be begging me for a mobile phone and I feel no way to be like ‘nope’ because I've got one. [But] you've got to be strong with it. My thing is this: if she doesn't need a phone then why is she having one? If I can delay her being in that world, I'm going to work super hard to make sure that it doesn't happen. I don't care if her friends have got phones. In our house, we don't want that.”.
* Read the full interview now in the March issue of Women’s Health UK or on the WH website. The new series of Britain’s Got Talent begins on Saturday 22 February at 7pm on ITV1 and ITVX. Follow Mirror Celebs on TikTok , Snapchat , Instagram , Twitter , Facebook , YouTube and Threads . Celeb obsessed? Get a daily dose of showbiz gossip direct to your inbox.
