She’s slept over with cage-fighters, eco warriors and a 70-year-old dominatrix, but now Stacey Dooley is spending the night with her own family in the latest episode of her W series, admitting the show is no less “bonkers” than usual – since it’s all about the birth of her daughter Minnie.
“We don’t know what the f**k we’re doing,” the 36-year-old says in Stacey Dooley Sleeps Over: Family And Me, the latest of her W specials.
“Do you remember that first night was just chaos?” she asks her partner, former Strictly Come Dancing professional dancer Kevin Clifton, who replies, “Absolute carnage. [Minnie]’s just screaming. We’d been up for three nights straight!”
During the show, the TV presenter looks back at the child-centric episodes of her docu-series to see whether becoming a mum has caused her to change her opinions on any of them. Although, Stacey is certain from the start that Minnie’s arrival has made her a whole new woman.
“I can’t sit here and say I was ever deeply obsessed with the idea of being a mum,” she tells the camera while tending to her daughter. “But it’s bonkers. I sound so cheesy, but you’re so in love and my entire psyche just changed when I found out I was pregnant. And when they arrive, it’s next level.”
Welcoming a camera crew into her London home, fans get their first proper glimpse of Minnie – however Stacey clarifies that they’ll only be showing the “back of her beautiful head”.
“Me and Kev have had various conversations, you know – do we show Minnie?” she says. “I want her to be able to give genuine consent. She’s not going to be in the limelight.”
Professional dancer Kevin, 40, regularly pops up throughout the special to give his thoughts on fatherhood and thinks he’ll be “stricter” than Stacey in the discipline department. “I think Stacey will be like, ‘Alright, you can stay up a bit longer,’” he says – although Stacey is sure they’ll both be “a lot less strict” than they think.
Kevin will be putting his foot down when it comes to dancing – and it won’t be on a ballroom floor. “I don’t want Minnie to dance,” he reveals, saying he’s “scared” that she would find her “sense of self-worth” based on the sport. “It’s too competitive a world,” he says. “I would rather she do something else. Anything else.”
However, Stacey thinks otherwise. “I think she’s going to have rhythm because, of course, Kev can dance. I would love her to dance.”
As Stacey watches back an episode featuring traditional housewife Lillian, who opted for a home birth, Stacey reveals she was “a total wreck” during her own birth. “I was hysterical going, ‘Is she OK? Is she OK?’ And [the doctor] was like, ‘Babes, she’s not out yet!’”
“I don’t want to sound too gushy or soppy, but I couldn’t have done this without Kev. I couldn’t have done this with anyone else,” she says. “You’ve always loved them but it’s a different love that I have for Kev now. Like my family.”
Although it hasn’t been without setbacks for the pair, with Stacey revealing that she was once so tired and emotional, she burst into tears when Kevin accidentally dropped her freshly-pumped breast milk all over the floor.
“I heard what had gone on and I went, ‘OK, don’t kick off,
it wasn’t deliberate.’ I brought myself upstairs, got into bed and cried and cried and cried,” she says. “The pillow was wet. Everything feels so massive. Your hormones are all over the shop.”
Stacey and Kevin met in 2018 when they were partnered together on Strictly Come Dancing, which they went on to win. They started dating shortly afterwards, but Stacey reveals in the special that she’s not interested in marrying Kevin, who has been married three times, most recently to his Strictly co-star Karen Hauer, who he divorced in 2018.
“Marriage has just never been massively important to me,” Stacey says. “Obviously, it is very well-documented that Kev’s done it a couple of times before so you have to bear that in mind.”
For now, Stacey is focusing on juggling her career with her new role as a mum – and at only two months in at the time of recording, she’s struggling.
“I’m sitting here right now trying to do the two. But to pretend that I found the last couple of months easy would be totally disingenuous. I completely appreciate it because it’s a full-time job, it really, really is. And I used to think people were exaggerating. I used to think people were being melodramatic when they would say how hard it is. Honest to God, it’s the hardest gig you’ll ever do.”
While Stacey admits that she “completely underestimated” the sleep deprivation and challenges that come with young children, she indicates she’s ready for baby number two. “You’re so tired and sometimes you really feel like you’re in the trenches. I would love to have more babies.
“I said to Kev the other day, ‘Don’t you want to do this again?’ And he went, ‘Are you nuts?’” Stacey adds, with Kevin quickly joking, “You’re overtired.”
Looks like there’s not very much sleep in this episode of Stacey Dooley Sleeps Over.
Stacey Dooley Sleeps Over: Family And Me airs on Thursday 3 August, 10pm, W .