Monty Python star Michael Palin explains real reason he turned down Strictly

Michael Palin has squashed rumours about him appearing on Strictly Come Dancing.

The 81-year-old, who tragically lost his wife Helen last year, recently shared that he doesn't believe he will ever appear on a BBC programme again. The former Monty Python star, who went on to host acclaimed travel series such as Around the World in 80 Days, Pole to Pole, and Himalaya after his sitcom days, expressed frustration with the direction BBC executives took with his shows, which contributed to his decision.

"I don't have regrets really," he says. "Perhaps towards the end, when I was doing the later travel journeys like North Korea. Helen was then less well, less good at looking after herself, unfortunately, and that was a slightly difficult time.

"There was the feeling that the BBC wanted to interfere a little more," he says of his departure. "They wanted to control it a little more.

"And they had this new way of presenting shows - which I would get absolutely, desperately frustrated with - where they would show, in the first five minutes, all the great moments of what was to come. Because this captured viewers. Otherwise, as soon as they see Michael Palin, they'll switch off."

Palin left the BBC in 2012, and since then, he has shifted to Channel 5, exploring destinations like Iraq and North Korea. His latest project is a three-part series documenting his travels through Nigeria.

It comes after the actor recently opened up about revealed that his wife of 57 years, Helen Gibbins, had passed away due to kidney failure. Despite this, he expressed having "no great worries" about death, though he confessed to feeling some guilt for continuing to travel while she was unwell.

Speaking about the immense void left in his life after the passing of his wife, he stated: "It's very odd, not having her here. But that's not just about travel.

"It's about coming back from a night at the theatre or dinner and the first thing I want is to tell Helen, 'That was crap,' or, 'That was wonderful.' I still feel quite bereft, because it's the little things. The people we knew over such a long period whom I can't talk about now to her."

Opening up about his about his own mortality, he told The Times: "I'm in my eighties and lots of people don't make it there. So I don't have any great worries about death. I mean, it's going to happen sometime soon.

"I hear people say Euston station works are going to be finished in 2033 and think, 'Oh, I won't be around then.' But I've got so many interests - either books I'm researching or future travel series - which make me forget about mortality."