The Strictly judge and her mum on Shirley’s love of dance, being a single-parent family, and the joy of living together now
Born in Wallasey (now Merseyside) in 1960, Shirley Ballas is one of the most decorated ballroom and Latin dancers in the world. She became a three-time winner of the British Professional Latin Championship (Open to the World), before retiring from competitive dancing in 1996 to become a teacher and adjudicator. In 2017, she joined the BBC’s Strictly Come Dancing as a judge. She lives in London with her mother, Audrey, who has chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Ballas supports the Breathe Equal campaign with Sanofi, to raise awareness of COPD and address stigma and inequalities in care.
My mother and I were on a cruise liner going around Hawaii. I’d saved up for a long time to take her away, and we had the most remarkable time together. The only downside was I was coming out of a relationship and kept whining about it. At breakfast one morning, I was crying, so she smacked me round the face. You bet your life I shut up after that. That’s old-school parenting, right there.
My parents divorced when I was two, so it was just my mum, myself and my brother in the house. Nobody had anything much on the estate, so there was a community and everyone helped out. As Mum worked a lot, my brother and I had to learn how to take care of ourselves – from a young age we were able to make a roast dinner, shop for the groceries and keep the house tidy. To this day, I like everything orderly and organised exactly the way Mum does.
