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Len Goodman died on Apr. 22, 2023, at age 78, after battling bone cancer.
The Strictly Come Dancing and Dancing with the Stars host was married twice.
He was still married to his second wife, Sue Barrett, at the time of his death.
The world woke up on Monday to the news that Len Goodman, professional dancer, and judge on Strictly Come Dancing/Dancing with the Stars, had died in hospice in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, England, on Apr. 22. He was days shy of his 79th birthday. “A much-loved husband, father, and grandfather who will be sorely missed by family, friends, and all who knew him,” read a statement provided by his manager. The 78-year-old Len was surrounded by his family when he died.
Len is survived by his son and wife of more than a decade, Sue Barrett. However, Sue, 57, wasn’t the first woman to walk down the aisle with Len. Forty years before Len and Sue tied the knot in 2012, he said “I do” to his first wife, Cherry Kingston. As the world mourns Len with tributes and remembrances, here’s what you need to know about his partners.
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Sue Barrett
Len met his future second wife at a golf club in 2002, per The Sun. Like Len, Sue had a passion for dance – she is a dance instructor who runs a ballroom dancing school out of their home in Kent. However, she didn’t share Len’s taste for fame. “She likes to stay out of the limelight,” Len would later say about his partner, per The Daily Mail.
“She’s gorgeous and makes me very happy,” he would say of his partner. He would also joke that she was lucky to fall in love with him because he’s so good in bed. “I don’t snore. I don’t take the duvet. I just lay there and go straight off to sleep. That’s all you want out of a bloke,” he would joke.
Sue and Len arrive for their marriage (Shutterstock)
After ten years together, Len and Sue tied the knot in a secret ceremony in December 2012. “I’ve had a marvelous day, and now my gorgeous Sue is the new Mrs. Goodman,” he said afterward, per The Daily Mail. “Did I pickle my walnuts? Of course, I did! I wanted it to be a low-key affair, so we didn’t tell anyone except my 96-year-old mum as I didn’t want her having a heart attack with the surprise.”
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“I knew I’d found the woman I wanted to be with for the rest of my life, so why not get married?” he added. “I’ve said before I’m selfish, and that doesn’t equate well for marriage, but My Wonderful Sue got that out of me. I’ve become totally unselfish, and I think that’s because it’s true love.”
When asked if he got down on one knee to propose, he said, “At my age, no way! I made her go four stairs above me on the staircase, so at least she was taller than me, does that count? We’ve had a marvelous day, with marvelous food surrounded by all my dearest friends – and it didn’t go on for too long, so it didn’t get boring!”
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Len and Sue didn’t have any children over their twenty-plus-year relationship. He had a son from a relationship between his marriages.
Cherry Kingston
In 1972, Len, age 25, married his first wife, Cherry Kingston, after two years of dating. She was his dancing partner and five years younger than him. Len would give up dancing after winning the British Championships in Blackpool in his late 20s. He also won Dual of the Giants, British Rising Stars, The British Exhibition Championships four times, and the World Exhibition Championships in the 1970s.
“I’ve been the luckiest man in the world,” he told the Daily Mail in 2008. “I became British Dance Champion [in his late 20s] only because the bloke who should have won it had broken his leg skiing, otherwise, I’d have been second.”
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But, when he retired, their marriage began to crumble. “The dancing was the glue that really held us together. Once that finished, she looked at me and thought, ‘What am I doing with him?’” Len told the Daily Mail.
When visiting Monte Carlo, Len and Cherry met a wealthy French man named “Michael” in a casino, per The Sun. She and “Michael” fell in love and soon asked Len for a divorce. “I can’t blame her. He was a multi-millionaire. That helped, I guess. It wasn’t a tragedy, although it was a shock because I always thought I’d be the one who would shove off,” he told the Daily Mail.
“Lesley”
Love soon came calling for Len. While separated from Cherry – they’d finalize the divorce in 1987 – he met a woman named Lesley. Described as the ex-wife of “a bloke called Wilf Pine who had managed Black Sabbath,” Len and “Lesley” would maintain a relationship until the early 1980s.
“I was going out with a girl who got pregnant,” Len told the Daily Mail, “and because of that, my wonderful son came along when I was almost 40. He’s a marvelous boy. Children give life a reason to be – they make life.”
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