Shirley Ballas has revealed she was reduced to tears by cruel comments about her postpartum body at the height of her competitive career.
The Strictly Come Dancing judge, 64, welcomed her son Mark, 38, with her second husband Corky Ballas, who she married in 1985 and won Professional Latin with at Blackpool Dance Festival in 1995 and 1996. The pair were also crowned US International Latin Champions seven times.
Ballas said, despite her professional success, a competition judge once made cruel comments about her figure following her unexpected pregnancy when she moved to the US to work as a dancer in Texas.
Speaking to Gabby Logan on The Mid Point podcast, Ballas said: “Mark was unexpected so…once I’d given birth to Mark, I was right in the middle of my career.
“I’ll never forget doing a competition shortly afterwards, and my coach saying to me, ‘We don’t want to see your stretch marks. How dare you be so insulted to bring that fat body into the ballroom’.
“And he marked a six on that day and we ended up third and I’ll never forget; that will sit with me for the rest of my life, which makes me careful about how I talk to other people,” she said.
When asked if she wanted to cry after her coach made the comments, Ballas replied: “I did cry. I was upset because obviously, I had all those post, you know, feelings.”
She explained: “It was six weeks after he was born and I thought I’d done pretty good to get myself... half decent in a Latin dress. You know, with some cut-outs on the side. So, I thought I’d done quite well there, but there were always people pulling you down.”
Elsewhere in the podcast, Ballas admitted she has had to make some changes to her lifestyle as a health diagnosis could force her to undergo three operations, which she is keen to avoid.
“I’ve got this disorder in my spine, degenerative spine, which I haven’t really talked about with anybody yet, but there’s three types of operations, and I don’t want to do the operations,” she said.
“So I’m doing anti-inflammatory [diet], I’m trying to do more juicing, I’m ice-bathing.”
Strictly’s head judge revealed she spends four to five minutes in an ice bath at 5am every day in a bid to “stimulate” her body at the start of the day.
“Plus, I’ve cut down my hours at work because I don’t want any operations for as long as I don’t possibly have to,” she said.
When asked if she thinks her back issues are “dance related”, Ballas replied: “Dance related, wear and tear on an old body, on an old gal.”
She reflected: “It’s just what it is really. All that back bending and head flicking, as you see on Strictly Come Dancing.
“It’s not an easy sport when you’ve done it seven days a week, 24/7 all your life, and you’re still doing it.”
