Shirley Ballas: ‘I taught Tom Cruise how to salsa – he still hasn’t paid me’

The ballroom dancing legend and Strictly Come Dancing judge on trolling, forgiveness and motherly advice

Born Shirley Rich in Wallasey, Merseyside, in 1960, Shirley Ballas started ballroom dancing at the age of seven, before competing professionally from 15 to 36. She then became a dance coach and judge for ballroom and Latin American competitions, and replaced Len Goodman as the head judge on Strictly Come Dancing in 2017. Twice divorced with one son, Mark, from her second marriage to the American ballroom dancer Corky Ballas, Shirley lives in southeast London with her 87-year-old mother, Audrey.
I remember for one of my birthdays my mum, who was a single parent, took me to Littlewoods to buy me my very first velvet jacket. But the one I really wanted, which was £10 more, was in Marks & Spencer. When we got home, she decided we’d go back to Littlewoods and exchange that velvet jacket and get the one from Mark’s, which was such a kind thing to do. 
One was when I gave birth to my son, Mark, because I was going through a difficult time. I was a young mum, aged 25, and he was just everything to me – and he still is.
Mark got this job in California to teach Tom Cruise how to salsa, but he couldn’t do it, so he asked me if I’d go. So, I went along and Tom, who had some serious hip action going on, was super charming. He gave me a lovely picture and a lovely cuddle. We worked for three or four hours, and it was absolutely amazing, but I’m still waiting to get paid. So, if you’re out there, Tom Cruise, get your chequebook out!
I wouldn’t have lasted so long in this industry if I hadn’t been as forgiving as I am. I’ve dealt with many experiences of serious bullying over the years, by the men at the top. But I try not to hold any grudges, or carry any weight around with me to do with other people, so I’m much more forgiving than most of my friends. Forgiving is just in my nature. I’m just generally a very forgiving person. 
From 2013 to 2017, I was being bullied so badly, and my son, who’s a three times winner on Dancing With the Stars in America and a Broadway star, said to me, “Why don’t you try to go for Uncle Len’s job? I hear he’s retiring.” And I replied, “Don’t be stupid. Nobody’s going to take a 57-year-old mother with no TV experience.” He said, “Why don’t you just try? You don’t know unless you try.” I then went for two interviews with the BBC, and I’ve had the blessing of seven years on Strictly, now going into the eighth year.
Compared with my first Strictly audition, which was an absolute disaster – thanks, Ann Widdecombe [more below] – my second one the following day was a dream. I’d got over the shock from the previous day, and rather than failing to critique Ann, I got to talk about Ed Balls, and I ended up getting the job. I ended up climbing Kilimanjaro with Ed [for Comic Relief in 2019], and I love him, he’s a good friend of mine now. Without Ed, I might never have got the job on Strictly.
My mother has given me several pieces of advice I’ll never forget. First, “Nothing in life is for free, ever”. And then, when my brother passed away [David took his own life in 2003, aged 44] and I had to go back to work, she grabbed me by the arm, and said, “Just remember to hang your problems at the door and pick them up on the way out, because no one cares. If you’re struggling, we can chat when you get home, but don’t take your problems into work.”
My first Strictly audition. I’d just flown in from the United States and I had all my make-up and hair on, and this long evening dress, and I arrived at this freezing cold studio with cameras everywhere. I sat next to [fellow judge] Craig Revel Horwood, who I’d never met, and he said, “We’re going to throw somebody up on the screen, Shirley, and you will have 15 to 20 seconds to critique them. And then we’ll move on.” Well, they threw up Ann Widdecombe. 
I’m a world-class coach and I’d never quite seen anyone in a yellow fluffy dress cleaning the floor before. Craig turned to me and he went, “This week, darling,” but I couldn’t speak. I had no words. There were lots of cameras, some with green lights and I was looking at one with a red light and it just felt a mess. That night, the executive producer, Louise Rainbow, asked, “How do you think you did?” and I replied, “S—,” and she said, “Why don’t you come back tomorrow in a pair of jeans and a blouse and there will be only one camera person.” I had a long chat with my son for two or three hours that night and I nailed it the next day.
Picking up the phone and finding out my brother had taken his own life was the single worst moment of my life. I collapsed on the floor and had to call my ex-husband to drive my mother and me, because we were in London, all the way up to the North. It was the Friday of a bank holiday weekend, so the traffic was bad, and we couldn’t get hold of anybody to tell us what was happening. Everything was a drama. And my poor soul of a mother: when the police came to the house, they arrived at the front door, and said, “Mrs Rich?” I moved aside, and she stepped forward and they broke the news. It was awful. 
The only positive that can be taken from such a terrible time is that, because I got the Strictly job years later, I’m now able to use that platform to be an ambassador for the Campaign Against Living Miserably, so I’m able to help people with suicidal thoughts or anybody who feels like they want to take their own life.
I had a letter hand-delivered when I was doing pantomime in 2019 in Darlington, warning me that I’d need to look over my shoulder all the time, that I shouldn’t be on Strictly, that I don’t know what I’m talking about, and I would have my comeuppance for the people that I sent home. Another one drew a coffin with a skeleton in it and my face on the skeleton, and somebody else at the end of the other coffin with a spade, and a message saying, “Die, you b—h.”
I used to dance with a little girl when I was about 11 or 12, and her mother told me that I was not as great a dancer as everybody seemed to be making out. She said, “And what’s more, you’re going to have that really pocky skin.” That affected me. I remember my mum bought me all sorts of things to wash my face and I couldn’t get over it. 
I thought I was going to have this awful skin forever. Later I realised that she was saying it because I got the boy partner that her daughter didn’t get, and she was just being mean. But that sort of criticism makes you stronger, and also teaches you never to do that to a young person, who might be insecure.
Shirley Ballas’s crime novel, Murder on the Dance Floor, is out now in paperback, published by Harper Collins  
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