Daniel O'Donnell for Strictly Come Dancing

20 August 2015

Daniel O'Donnell has signed up for 'Strictly Come Dancing'.

Daniel O'Donnell

The 'My Donegal Shore' singer has been revealed as the eighth celebrity set to take part in the BBC One dance contest later this year after admitting his wife Majella persuaded him to do it.

He said: "When the email came in from the 'Strictly' people I was actually sitting in Tenerife and I got this email, read it, and I didn't say anything, I just walked over to her and I said read that email there and the funny thing about it is my brother-in-law and his wife were there, they're huge 'Strictly' fans, and I said I wonder if I asked would I get on that because I had been approached a few times for the Christmas special but I was always away, could never commit to doing it, and we were just joking about it and about two weeks after this email came in. I said, 'We have the time off now', she [my wife] says, 'You can have time off any time, don't miss this'."

The 53-year-old star confessed the few dance moves he does while performing on stage is all the experience he has.

Speaking on 'Steve Wright in the Afternoon' on BBC Radio 2, he shared: "I can dance but don't ask me to be in a certain place at a certain time so this is going to be very challenging for me.

"I'll be very hard to tie down so God help whoever gets me.

It's exciting and I think it's quite an honour to be asked because there's so many people who could be asked to do it and here I am and I'm looking forward to it."

Daniel joins Ainsley Harriott, former 'Coronation Street' actress Georgia May Foote, weather presenter Carol Kirkwood, BBC Proms presenter Katie Derham, 'EastEnders' star Kellie Bright, 'Eggheads' host Jeremy Vine and 'Mysterious Girl' hitmaker Peter Andre on this year's line-up.

Daniel added: "I'm looking forward to meeting a lot of the other people already, those who are announced, because I watch 'Coronation Street', I watch 'EastEnders', I watch 'Eggheads' and other things so you're meeting people ... I mean I never really would've met Peter Andre and Ainsley Harriott. I just think that even though you're doing what you're doing, you might never run into these people so it's nice for me to get to meet other people like that."