MOTSI Mabuse might well spend Christmas Day collapsed in an exhausted heap.
For the past three months Strictly Come Dancing’s newest judge has been mainly functioning on pure adrenalin, flying back and forth between filming commitments in the UK and her home in Germany, while also running her dance school and being mum to a lively 15-month-old daughter.
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And as we head towards the Strictly grand final next weekend, she says she’s expecting the crazy schedule to catch up with her any day now.
“Maybe because I’m excited all the time, my body is keeping up… So far! I haven’t felt exhaustion yet. Probably on Christmas Day it’ll suddenly hit me.
“I’ve travelled all my life as a dancer, although I have a baby now so there’s a big difference and I’m very careful about what time I spend away from home and where I am. So it’s been a balancing act,” she says.
South-African-born Motsi, 38, was the surprise appointment to the judging panel, joining Craig Revel Horwood, Shirley Ballas and Bruno Tonioli after Darcey Bussell quit this summer.
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Younger sister Oti, 29, was already one of the professionals on the BBC series, and former ballroom and Latin queen Motsi was a household name herself in Germany with eight years under her belt as a judge on the German version of the show Let’s Dance.
But she had no idea just how big a part of British culture Strictly was, after 15 years and 17 series.
She says: “Oti said to me: ‘Wow, everything is going to change for you because it’s crazy over here!’ I thought she was joking until my name was announced and… Whoa!
'THE BEST THING I COULD DO WAS BE MYSELF'
“It’s much bigger and more traditional than the show in Germany. It’s a national treasure, it’s huge.
"There are so many people who work on it. I often say to Craig that I don’t know people’s names and he says: ‘I don’t know either and I’ve been here 15 years!’”
It didn’t take long for Motsi to win viewers over with her sense of fun, love of sparkles and technical nous.
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“I came in and the best thing I could do was be myself. The biggest issue for me has been the language because I speak so much German now. I’ve had to focus on my English and find more words to describe what I want to say and also soften my tone.
"It was quite stiff from 20 years of speaking German, so when I started speaking more English, oh my god, my tongue was like: ‘Argh’!”
She confides that yes, she was warned about the famous Strictly Curse although admittedly, this series appears to be scandal-free (ahem, give it time).
“Yeah, I did hear that it’s a thing here. People say it’s a curse but I think you have to be open to it for it to happen and that something must have been wrong [in a relationship] beforehand as well.
“But you know, if you work in this sort of world, adult things happen. Everyone goes for a drink and, whoops-a-daisy!” She laughs. “That’s why I don’t go to parties!”
Motsi knows only too well about how romance can blossom between dance partners. Aged 22 she married her first husband and professional partner Timo Kulczak.
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They divorced in 2014 (“We were so young and you realise things as you grow up. We’re still friends and in contact.”) and two years ago she married Ukrainian dancer Evgenij Voznyuk, 36. “I live in the dance world – I don’t meet anyone else!” she says.
Motsi and Evgenij were professional partners and won the German Latin American title together in 2013, but it was only after they retired in 2014, officially bowing out with a rumba on Let’s Dance, that she realised she’d fallen for him.
“We stopped and it was then that we realised that we wanted to do more than just dance together,” she hoots.
“When you’re dancing and doing the TV stuff, you’re very focused on that. I told him I wanted to retire because I couldn’t do it all any more. I’d been dancing my whole life. People go out to parties and get drunk and I’d never done any of that.
"I missed my youth because I was dancing, I didn’t do all the crazy stuff. I didn’t have boyfriends or anything – the first man I met I married!
I’d been dancing my whole life. People go out to parties and get drunk and I’d never done any of that.
Motsi Mabuse
“So I was going through a ‘phase’ and we did our final dance and it was after that I was like: ‘Wow, I’m not dancing and I miss him’. So it was a case of maybe let’s just see and…”
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She breaks off to mime an explosion. “Whoosh! And then I was married!” There’s more laughter. Motsi laughs a lot and it’s infectious.
“There’s a deep honesty between us, we don’t pretend. Sometimes honesty isn’t fun, but I know his fears and he knows mine.
"We’re each other’s best friend and we’re going through the journey together. And now we have our little girl and it’s a dream come true for us.”
JUGGLING MOTHERHOOD
Motsi juggles work with her daughter, who she has never named publicly. A recent Instagram post showed her sat at a computer with the little girl perched on her knee and the caption: “This is how I do it.”
“It’s true,” she says with a shrug. “She comes with me everywhere – I go to meetings and she’s drawing on the board. We’re always together and that’s how I do it. She doesn’t go to nursery, she has me full-time and she’s such a mum’s girl.
“So I did worry when I first took the Strictly job, but she’s been fine. And what’s lovely is that when I’m home she’s all ‘Mummy, Mummy’ – this way, finally it’s ‘Daddy, Daddy!’.
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"They have their daddy and daughter day on a Saturday and it really gives them a chance to develop their relationship.
"My husband said he gets all this love now. It’s good for them and it’s good for me not to be in that space with them.”
Would she like more children? “Yes! I’d like three, but I’m not sure I’d manage. So maybe one more. Maybe.
“I always wanted children but I was scared. Being responsible for a baby is such a big thing so I was nervous! Even when I was pregnant it felt overwhelming, but once she was here I knew I would kill for her. It does something to you.”
Motsi grew up in Pretoria under apartheid, although she says her parents Dudu and Peter sheltered their children from the realities of racial segregation for as long as they could.
When Motsi started school and was forced to travel on a separate bus from the white children, she got her first real experience of prejudice and started to understand the brutality and oppression of the system black people were living under.
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“My parents built a world where they protected us. We knew something was going on, but they tried to give us a childhood where we were shielded and not exposed to the harshness of the world.
“It wasn’t until we went to school that we first realised it was tough out there. It was about learning to live with the fact that the world isn’t fair to you because you’re black.
“The world is not fair in so many ways. I don’t want my daughter to ever feel that she can’t do something because of her skin colour. I don’t want her to think that because of her skin colour she shouldn’t aspire to certain things.”
Motsi’s father Peter wanted his children to study law, but her idol was Whitney Houston and she’d fallen in love with performing.
It wasn’t until we went to school that we first realised it was tough out there. It was about learning to live with the fact that the world isn’t fair to you because you’re black.
Motsi Mabuse
“He expected us to go into law because he wanted us to find a way to freedom and he thought education was the only way. Our parents wanted the best for us, they only wanted to protect us.
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Motsi started a law degree at the University of Pretoria, but quit to try and make it as a professional dancer in Germany. How did that go down? “Hmm! Not good,” she says.
She tried to break the news to her mum and dad slowly. “At first I told them I was going to a dance camp in Germany for two weeks.
"Then I said: ‘Oh, I’m going to stay there a year’. And after another three months I said: ‘If I’m going to give this a go then I have to take a break from law.’ I’m still on that break, 20 years later!
“My parents were worried about everything. They’d never been overseas so they didn’t know where I was going or what was happening. They had to trust the universe that I’d be OK.
“And the chances of it all going wrong were huge, going into something that has nothing to do with academia and they don’t know anything about. It was difficult, and when Oti came to Germany, too, it was like: ‘Oh, look what you started, Motsi!’”
'I'VE HAD TO FIGHT'
Shirley Ballas said recently that women especially need “spines of steel” to survive the cut-throat dance industry. To make it to the very top of the game takes guts as much as it does talent.
The last...
Book you read?
Michelle Obama’s book, Becoming.
Movie you watched?
The Lion King.
TV Series?
RuPaul’s Drag Race.
Podcast?
Eckhart Tolle. He’s a German spiritual teacher and it’s all about consciousness.
Time you cried?
Will Bayley’s couple’s choice dance left me speechless. He’s a real hero and it was beautiful. He moved me.
Lost your temper?
Maybe July 2017, just before we opened the dance school and it was very stressful. I don’t often lose my temper but the day it comes
Damn!
WhatsApp?
My husband checking I’d landed OK.
“It’s true,” says Motsi. “Myself and Shirley are tough girls because we’ve been through that. It’s a very male-dominated sport, so if you make your name as a woman in the dance world then you become iconic.
“I’ve had to fight. In South Africa we never had a chance. I learned that I’d never be a champion because of my skin colour and that’s what breaks you down and makes you tough. I was like: ‘I’m going to show them’. It gives you energy.
It’s a very male-dominated sport, so if you make your name as a woman in the dance world then you become iconic.
Motsi Mabuse
“And then coming to Europe and starting from ground zero, you learn fast. You learn to go your way. And, yes, it toughens you up.” She still needs that strength of spirit from time to time.
When she landed the Strictly job, dancer and reality star Louie Spence declared her a “nobody” and accused the BBC of “box ticking” by hiring her, the implication being that no woman of colour could possibly have got the job on merit.
“I don’t react to anything negative at all,” says Motsi. “I made it a rule for myself. Sometimes I’ll type in a response on my phone and just leave it there.
"Just this morning I did it before the flight, switched my phone off and when we landed I looked at the message again and the emotions had passed, so I deleted it.
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“Having achieved everything I have has given me a sense of: ‘Relax, girl’. Something like that [the Louie comment], I didn’t even know the person. I Googled him, saw one picture and just went: ‘OK, whatever. Enough, poor child!’”
Motsi sits with her back poker-straight throughout our interview – she might no longer be dancing professionally, but the elegance and poise are still there.
She says her body shape has changed in recent years, not least since pregnancy, but she isn’t bothered about regaining the “aesthetic” she achieved as a dancer.
FORGET 'BABY BODIES'
“I was very thin when I was dancing. Since I’ve stopped, and especially since being pregnant, my body has changed. You know, I’ve been doing sport for 20 years, working hard with my body and now it’s time for me to relax.
“I had to make a choice and I wanted to live my life. The press write about ‘baby bodies’ but don’t judge a woman who’s going to take her time.
"I’m still in-between deciding about having another baby so I’m certainly not going to kill myself only to fall pregnant and do it all again!
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“I notice that my body is changing and I’m acknowledging the change. It’s not like I’m: ‘Oh, yeah, I’m fabulous!’, I’m just aware.”
She speaks warmly of her fellow judges – she’s known Shirley for years (“We’ve decided we’re soul sisters, we have such good connection”) and she loves the unpredictability of sitting next to Craig.
“He has this reputation on the show, but he’s such a nice guy. For me it’s tingling sitting next to him because I don’t know what he’s going to say. It’s fascinating to feel that excitement.”
Would she think about a permanent move to the UK? “I love the UK. There’s freedom and art and colour and the people are open and that’s what I love about it. I love that it’s so easy to get sushi!
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She says there’s no new contract on the table yet, but she’s proved that Strictly can fit nicely into her schedule. And, yes, she would like to return next year.
“It’s been amazing,” she says. “And going back to Germany on the Sunday after the show means I can also leave it behind. I’m part of it for two days and that’s fabulous, but then I go back to my world.”
- Watch the Strictly Come Dancing final, Saturday, BBC1.
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- Hair: Dino Pereira using Kiehl’s since 1851 Magic Elixir
- Make-up: Aimee Adams using Urban Decay
- Styling: Tracey Lea Sayer
- Stylist’s assistant: Jess Evans
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December 08, 2019 at 07:01AM
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Strictly’s Motsi Mabuse on racism, motherhood and shaking up this year’s show - The Sun
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