Len Goodman And His First Wife Cherry Kingston Get Divorced

While she may have been successful in her own right, she was not the ideal partner Goodman had in mind. “Yes, I’ve enjoyed the rise — but my goodness, I certainly know a bit about the falls,” he wrote. “My first marriage, for instance, to Cherry, ended in tears. And it wasn’t as if I hadn’t been warned.”

Several decades before Len Goodman wed Sue Barrett, he married Cherry Kingston. While Goodman has reserved his public compliments for his current wife — such as the time he called her “My wonderful Sue” — he did write extensively about his first marriage to Kingston in his memoir, “Better Late Than Never.” “Yes, I’ve enjoyed the rise — but my goodness, I certainly know a bit about the falls,” Goodman wrote in reference to Kingston (via the Daily Mail). “My first marriage, for instance, to my dance partner, Cherry, ended in tears. And it wasn’t as if I hadn’t been warned.” 

Goodman also wrote that his father urged him to find a mate with whom he shared several commonalities. “Len, imagine that inside of you are maybe ten metronomes that tick,” shared Goodman’s father. “Now, the ideal partner is one whose metronome ticks in time with yours.” Goodman and Kingston were both professional ballroom dancers, but that was the only true passion they shared. “But many dance marriages split up because one day you look across at the person you’re with and realize you’ve got nothing else in common — there are not enough metronomes ticking,” he continued. “That’s exactly what happened to Cherry and me.”

Eventually, Kingston divorced Goodman for “a multi-millionaire.”