Strictly Come Dancing judge Motsi Mabuse has spoken out about the harrowing emotional and physical abuse she says she suffered at the hands of her dance teachers in South Africa as a child.
The former professional dancer, 41, claimed she was physically abused, manipulated and subjected to cruel taunts as she learned to dance.
Motsi said her tough childhood has led her to take measures to ensure pupils at her own dance school don’t face the same mistreatment.
Speaking about her upbringing at the Cheltenham Literature Festival over the weekend, Motsi reportedly told the crowd: "Some of them [my dance teachers] were good and inspirational but some of the relationships were abusive. And, you know, when you speak about abuse, sometimes people tend to be like, 'Yeah, where did he hit you? How did he hit you? Show me pictures.
"But stuff like manipulation and emotional abuse, those are kind of things you can't see. It's in your head, like it happens to you.
"When a teacher says to you, 'you're dancing like my dog' or something, and they repeat it quite often, there's no way of showing to people this has happened to me as a little girl.
“Some were physically abusive as well,” she added, according to Daily Mail reports.
The mum-of-one spoke about the racial abuse she encountered as a young dancer in South Africa, where she grew up with her sisters during apartheid.
Motsi previously called their childhood "very sad" and this weekend the Strictly judge said she felt there was often no one there to “defend” her, despite her mum sometimes being present for her abuse.
Motsi said her mother was "shocked" about how they chose to discipline the students, but "nobody thought to remove the kids".
The professional dancer says she felt like no-one was defending her, which is what has stayed with her in later life.
Motsi previously told The Mirror of her difficult upbringing during apartheid in South Africa.
"I'm so thankful for the world of dance because if I had grown up with just the South African bitterness of the very hard childhood we had, and I'd never experienced the love of the dance world, then I probably would have been a very sad person," she told The Mirror.
"The world of dance is where I felt accepted as a human being."
She also previously said on Loose Women, while looking at a childhood photo of herself: "We were in the middle of apartheid and racism and we had to learn to fight so if you look at that little girl, she had to learn to fight from the onset – this is going to be a tough life she’s going to live."
Motsi and sister Oti, 32, stuck together and they both ended up moving to Germany when they were older before relocating to the UK for Strictly.
