When Stephen Mulhern signed up to present the new series of Dancing On Ice, he probably didn’t anticipate he’d end up becoming a punching bag for one of the UK’s most famous boxers.
On Sunday night, Stephen made his debut as the new presenter of Dancing On Ice alongside Holly Willoughby, who returned to our screens following a prolonged absence.
The show itself largely went ahead without incident, but towards the end of the live broadcast, the Catchphrase host took part in a small skit with Ricky Hatton, in which the former world champion became his human mic stand.
While Ricky pretended to grow tired of Stephen, Holly urged the celebrity skater to “just hit him”. And “hit him” he did – much to the shock of viewers watching at home, many of whom speculated the blow may have been a little harder than intended…
Ouchie.
Stephen later laughed off the incident on X (formerly Twitter), joking to his followers that he was “already starting to bruise”.
At the end of Sunday’s live show, it was revealed that Ricky had landed in the bottom two, and will perform in the first skate-off of the series next week, after which the judges will decide who to save.
Stephen took over as host of Dancing On Ice from Phillip Schofield, who resigned from ITV last year after admitting to having lied to producers at This Morning about an affair with a younger colleague on the show.
Dancing On Ice continues on Sunday night at 6.30pm on ITV1.