Strictly winner Kara Tointon reveals glitterball trophy is made of cardboard after mirrors come off

Strictly Come Dancing's class of 2022 have their eyes firmly on the prize of the glitterball trophy, but former winner Kara Tointon has warned the semi finalists that it is a lot less glitzy than they might think.

The actor and 2010 champion has revealed that she discovered her glitterball trophy was actually made of cardboard when all the mirror tiles fell off it.

Read more: Who's the favourite to win Strictly 2022?

Speaking to podcast Celebrity Catch Up: Life After That Thing I Did about her time on the BBC One dance show, Tointon said that the mirror tiles had fallen off her glitterball trophy leaving her with a much less glamorous memento.

"It’s now bald," she said. "It’s a bloomin’ bald, grey cardboard ball. I feel like saying to the BBC, ‘I need some maintenance on this please! If you can get round here and shimmy it on together again’.

"It should come with a lifetime guarantee."

Read more: All the Strictly winners so far

Tointon won the 2010 series with pro dancer Artem Chigvintsev and admitted she still couldn't believe her victory.

She said: "I still cannot believe that I won the show. It’s my victory in life and I take it with both hands."

The former EastEnders star added: "You’re doing something that is completely out of your comfort zone in every sense, but a really one-off life experience that I look back at so fondly."

Also in the podcast chat, Tointon, 39, told how she used to live in a very creepy home.

She said: "I lived in what was an old hospital and for a while I was living in the morgue - but I didn’t realise it used to be.

"And then people were saying, ‘we’ve heard some really odd things go on in there, have you noticed anything?’ But I’m so obliviously going through life, I didn’t... but it was quite funny."

Strictly's semi finalists for 2022 were named on Saturday and include Hamza Yassin, Helen Skelton, Fleur East, Will Mellor and Molly Rainford.

Watch: Kara Tointon on using storytelling to bring families together in lockdown