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Former Strictly Come Dancing winner Ore Oduba has revealed how his porn addiction since the age of nine has ‘destroyed his life from the inside out’.
The TV presenter, 39, who won the Glitterball trophy back in 2016, opened up about his personal struggles after ending his nine-year marriage to his ex wife Portia Jett last year.
Speaking to Celebs Go Dating star Paul C Brunson, Ore told how he was ‘terrified’ to address his addiction, which he battled for three decades.
‘Shame kept me silent for 30 years. It took me 30 years, two deaths, and a divorce to finally go: here’s what’s happening,’ he said on Paul’s We Need To Talk podcast.
The father-of-two continued: ‘This is me putting my life as it is on the line, to save my children and to guide anybody else’s children going into a world where at their fingertips, they can fall into something they never asked to.
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‘Part of me is terrified, the vast majority is terrified because I feel like, personally, for me, the rest of my life begins the day after this, as it’s a kind of a seminal draw-the-line moment.’
During the podcast, Ore explained how he wants to highlight the issue of younger people seeing sexual imagery to raise awareness as his two children – son Roman, seven, and daughter Genie, four – get older.
Discussing the moment he was first shown adult content on a computer by a friend’s older brother, he added: ‘I remember being very intrigued and a feeling of eyes being opened. Whilst I wouldn’t say addiction set in immediately, the intrigue started immediately.
‘And it didn’t take long relatively speaking, for that intrigue to start running my mind over because at nine, at that age, you haven’t necessarily got full access.
‘Wanting to find a way to address that intrigue, wanting to find ways of that awakening, wanting to replicate it or find it whether it was on television or in magazines.
‘This is the problem with this form of addiction that even I could understand at 10. It’s so shameful. We can’t talk about it because there is a perceived nature to it that is everything that we hate, everything that we despise.’
Ore, who grew up in Dorset, said his strict upbringing made him feel like he could never tell his family about his addiction.
He claimed that his father, who died in 2023, ‘ruled by fear’ which made him feel like he had to hide his creativity as well as what he now understands were his ADHD traits.
He said: ‘I already said the people that I love most in my life were the women in my life, the ones that stay. But what you’re seeing is so conflicting to that.
‘The battle that I was facing didn’t become so overwhelming that it took over for what I knew to be true.
‘I had two sisters, a mother that I loved. I knew I couldn’t share this with them because I knew it was so conflicting to the people that were most important to me. And so I have to, without knowing that I’ve fought against addiction, find a way to hide it. And it’s very isolating.
What can you do to treat porn addiction?
Addiction treatment professional Martin Preston said: ‘There is still much debate in the medical world as to whether an individual’s obsessive interest in pornography is less of an addiction and more of a compulsion.
‘The key difference is that addictions chase a sense of reward and compulsions chase a sense of relief.’
If you need help, options include therapy and counselling.
You can also try to lead a more active lifestyle to limit screen time and opportunities to watch porn. For example, you might install anti-porn software or blanket-blocking porn sites on your electronic devices.
To find out more, click on the UK Addiction Treatment Centre.
‘It was something that I just knew to be me. Just a part of me. Something that I would always go to to feel. If you ever felt worthless, if you ever felt rejected. It was always a thing.’
Ore, who is also known for his time on CBBC’s Newsround from 2008 to 2013, shot to fame when he won 2016’s Strictly.
He then went on to perform in The Rocky Horror Show tour for 12 months, which kept him on the road for long periods and proved ‘a difficult chapter’ at home.
In 2021, Ore appeared on Good Morning Britain where he told host Kate Garraway he’d had a ‘challenging’ year in his relationship with Portia, who he first met at Loughborough University in 2010 and tied the knot five years later.
As well as appearing on TV shows including Celebrity SAS and The Cube, Ore works as a musical theatre performer.
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