Former professional dancer on Strictly Come Dancing show has discovered that his family has a dark secret. Kevin Clifton made the shocking find on the BBC's Who Do You Think You Are show which is due to air tonight (June 22).
Kevin was left horrified by the revelation that he has an ancestor who was violent and abusive. Kevin discovered his great-great-great-grandfather was a wife-beater in the episode, reports BirminghamLive.
It turns out that Kevin is a direct descendent of John Russell. He and his wife Grace had an “incredibly rare” public divorce due to “infidelity on the part of Mrs Russell”, it emerged on the show.
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Mr Russell “struck his wife” and “blackened her eyes”, with Kevin saying: “Grace was in a violent and abusive relationship. Everything was stacked against her. It’s so unbelievably unfair.”
He added: “My ancestor was a villain.”
During the episode, after hearing from his father about a possible connection to a mysterious First Nations Canadian woman called Matooski, Kevin sets off for the country to discover a whole lineage of courageous and talented women, dating back to the 18th Century.
In Hudson Bay, he learns about his five-times great grandmother Nancy, and a family link that requires an immediate call to his mum and dad. The dancer, who is in a relationship with former Strictly partner Stacey Dooley, with whom he shares daughter Minnie, also told Digital Spy that he had been expecting his journey on Who Do You Think You Are? just to lead him back to his hometown of Grimsby.
“I said, ‘It’s either going to be just generations of ballroom dancers, or it’s going to be based in Grimsby and we’re going to be talking about the history of the fishing industry in Grimsby or something’,” he said. “That’s all I knew of myself really.
“So, for the episode to go where it ended up going was mind-blowing. I couldn’t believe it.”
Kevin Clifton's episode of Who Do You Think You Are airs tonight (June 22), at 9pm on BBC One.
