SHE’S the Love Island pocket rocket preparing to risk life and limb with some of the most daring lifts on Dancing On Ice.
But Amber Davies, who will push herself to the limit tomorrow night with her pro partner Simon Proulx-Senecal, admits she has had to dig deep to find her confidence for one manoeuvre, which has never been seen on the show.
“I need to get my teeth insured,” says 5ft 2in Amber with a laugh.
“It’s a turning lift, so Simon is spinning and I’m hanging on for dear life.
“My head’s quite close to the ice.
“I’m fearless when it comes to lifts — just not on the ice. ”
Recalling when Canadian Simon first tried the daring move with her, Amber adds: “I had a helmet on and I screamed pretty much the whole time and kept my eyes shut.”
After endless practice runs, Amber, 27, says she’s now found her feet and wants to challenge herself.
She says: “The lift has never been seen before on Dancing On Ice.
“Simon has done it during championships.
“He was like, ‘It’s hard. It is really hard’.
“And I told him, ‘I want to give it a go’.
“So we actually have put it into our routine.”
Her ex-boyfriend Kem Cetinay, with whom she won Love Island in 2017, did Dancing On Ice the next year and finished fourth, and now Amber wants to do better than him.
Since signing up to the ITV show last year, she has thrown herself into training.
The gruelling regime sees her taking to the rink with Simon for hours every day.
Amber is clearly in the best shape of her life and she is not the only one who has noticed, with her West End stage actor boyfriend Ben Joyce full of compliments.
Sexy outfits
The pair met when they performed in Back To The Future: The Musical in London’s West End.
Amber, who has built a successful stage-acting career since Love Island, says: “I have a skater’s bum now.
“I have been part of the flat bum community all my life, until about four months ago.
“I never thought that I’d be able to build muscle there because genetically the Davies family are just not graced with great bums, but I can see a little peach growing.
“Even my boyfriend said the other day, ‘Oh, you look good in those jeans!’.
“Because Simon and I are practising lots of lifts, I feel a lot stronger.
“My arms, my core, my legs — they are all working a lot.”
Now she has got it, Amber plans to flaunt it on the show, thanks to the ITV wardrobe department which has lined up a series of sexy outfits for her.
Fellow Love Islander Ekin-Su Culculoglu was last year at the centre of a backlash over a skimpy “nude” bodysuit she wore on Dancing On Ice.
The outfit got more than 100 Ofcom complaints.
But Amber insists she is not fazed by the prospect of criticism.
She explains: “As long as the costume fits the narrative of the routine we’re trying to perform, then that’s all I care about.
“When I had the meeting about costumes, hair and make-up, I said, ‘Please throw me in at the deep end’.
“I don’t want to wear anything that I would normally wear.
“I want to be wearing colours that I’d never really go for, and I want it to be bigger and bolder because that is a part of this experience — the looks, the make-up, the hair.
“I want to do things that I’ll never do again.”
Amber credits Ben, 23, with having helped her to love herself.
She adds: “It took me a while to get here.
“Especially because I came out of the Love Island villa when I was 20 and social media was only just kicking off then.
“So I’ve lived my twenties through the high of social media.
“Falling in love with my body is part of being in a healthy relationship.
“My boyfriend loves me no matter what, and that has really transferred to my relationship with myself and my body.”
Tomorrow night’s performance, as well as being daring, is extremely current, with Amber’s dance routine inspired by the billion-pound box-office hit movie Barbie, starring Margot Robbie.
She will channel her inner Mattel doll for movie week.
And while she is keen to impress viewers, she is also determined to outdo ex Kem’s efforts on Dancing On Ice, when he competed with pro partner Alex Murphy.
Amber says: “My aim is to beat my ex-boyfriend.
“He did such an amazing job.
“There’s nothing more motivating than doing a competition your ex-boyfriend’s done.”
Of the popularity of the pair’s romance which saw them crowned winners of Love Island, she says: “People fell in love with me and Kem.
“I had to accept that quite quickly, especially when I was single in my twenties.
“I couldn’t just be a normal 23-year-old dating whoever I wanted.”
But Amber adds: “Since being in a solid relationship, the worry and stress have gone, because I know there’s no story going to come out about me dating somebody.”
Of her Barbie routine, she adds: “I’ll be channelling Margot Robbie.
“I was obsessed with the film and went to watch it twice.
“I loved the soundtrack, so it’s like I manifested it.
“I spoke to my mum and she was like, ‘Amber, you were mad on Barbie when you were little’.
“I was obsessed with dolls.
“I was such a girl’s girl, always in pink.
“Mum was like, ‘This is perfect for you’.”
Amber is up against a host of big names this year, including Coronation star Claire Sweeney, Olympic ski jump legend Eddie “The Eagle” Edwards and S Club singer turned actress Hannah Spearritt.
Former boxing champ Ricky Hatton was at the weekend the first contestant voted off the show.
And while the competition is now heating up, Amber reckons the celebrities have all put their competitive spirits aside to support one another.
She says: “We’ve struck gold with this cast because I was speaking to Mark Hanretty, [radio DJ] Adele Roberts’s pro, and Robin Johnstone, who was Ricky Hatton’s pro, and they said, ‘There’s a different vibe with this cast.
“You’re all so comforting and each other’s cheerleaders.’
“I don’t think maybe that vibe has happened for a while.”
Hosts Holly Willoughby and Stephen Mulhern have also welcomed Amber with open arms.
She says with a smile: “Holly and Stephen, they’re so complimentary. They’re like, ‘Oh, you guys have been doing amazing’.
“They keep saying that the standard’s really high, so the vibe is really positive all the time and that helps.
“Stephen’s hysterical and so warm.
“When you speak to him, it’s like he’s your uncle.
“He cares so much and gives the best hug.”
- Dancing On Ice is on tomorrow at 6.20pm on ITV1 and ITVX.
