Anneka Rice reckons her biggest Challenge on Strictly could be just to stay out of hospital – after suffering a string of injuries in rehearsals.
The TV game show legend has been left black and blue while training for her Movie Week Charleston, inspired by Kill Bill.
She said: “This has been a very physical week – it’s been murder on the dance floor.
“I’ve been covered with bruises and blood, it hasn’t been a walk in the park.”
And she admitted she was so focused on learning the moves she did not even notice how she ended up bleeding. She said: “I don’t know where that came from.
“I was filming something for my Instagram account and we noticed blood was coming off my arm.”
Last night’s routine saw her in a tightly choreographed duel with partner Kevin Clifton, 36 – in a sporty outfit that echoed her Challenge Anneka and Treasure Hunt days.
But the gruelling training sessions with a stick left them both in agony.
Anneka, who turned 61 on Friday, said: “There have been mishaps – there is a point in the dance where I had to swizzle a stick up into the air and it’s meant to land neatly.
“But in training it’s landed in Kev’s eye and it’s landed in my ear. So there was quite a lot of jeopardy.
“We wasted about half a day on me trying to throw a stick in the air and getting it to land in the correct place.”
Anneka has struggled to score well from the judges in the first two weeks.
She is one of the bookies’ favourites to get voted off tonight – and admits she has no chance of winning.
She said: “To be honest, I feel it’s a miracle we’ve got through to this week.
“But I have 100 per cent more confidence with dancing than I did when I started this a few weeks ago.
“It’s weird taking up something so new. To start with, Kevin was struggling to get me to clap in time.”
Even if Anneka does bow out tonight, she admits taking part in Strictly has already changed her life.
For last week’s show she wore a dress – a world away from the jumpsuits she is famous for.
The star had previously dismissed talk of even having a spray tan, insisting: “I’m not intending one bit of my body to be on display, so I can’t see the point.”
But she said: “It changed everything, that dress. I feel more feminine. It’s been a huge change for me.
“After last week I’m now obsessed with wearing dresses. It’s opened a whole new door in my life.
“It’s given me a real incentive to stay in another week just so I can get another dress on.”
