This show is bigger than just lifting the trophy'

Dancing On Ice contestant Adele Roberts opens up about celebrating life since her cancer all clear and raising awareness of stomas

- LAUREN MORRIS

Radio presenter Adele Roberts is bundled up, with a hat and gloves, gracefully gliding across an ice rink as she trains for ITV1’s Dancing On Ice. With a huge smile on her face as she hugs her professional partner

Mark Hanretty, the brave broadcaster is worlds away from where she was just over two years ago – when she underwent treatment for stage two bowel cancer.

Now, Adele, 44, is not only clear of the disease, she’s thriving – and ready to take on the huge ITV show.

“I wanted to do this to reclaim my body after what it’s been through,” she says. “I feel like it’s allowing me to take back who I am again.”

Adele rose to fame on Big Brother’s 2002 series before moving into radio, and has presented on Capital, Hits Radio and BBC Radio 1. Just a year before her cancer diagnosis, she made radio history as the first Black woman to host the Radio 1 Breakfast show, filling in for Greg James. And now, she’s the first contestant with a stoma bag to compete in Dancing On Ice.

“I think it’s a privilege to be alive,” says Adele, who was diagnosed in October 2021 before undergoing chemotherapy and having her tumour removed. “I understand that now. What a joy, what amazing problems to have that I might fall on the ice. I get that now. And so there’s no expectation from me. Just making the show is my prize. Anything from here is a bonus.”

While Adele was given the all clear in June 2022, she lives life with a stoma bag – a pouch on her stomach that allows waste to leave her body after part of her colon was removed.