‘My son is everything to me – to have Michael James born & come into our lives has just been a blessing from God’

‘Who would have thought I would have a son like that?’

DANCE superstar Michael Flatley created history with a new performance style that put Irish dancing on the global map and made him a multi-millionaire through Riverdance and Lord of the Dance.

But the Chicago-born entertainer, whose parents were Irishborn, says none of his incredible achievements compare to the joy that fatherhood has given him.

As he gets set to launch his own whiskey brand tomorrow in a new business venture, Flatley says his late father, Michael Snr, gave him a “head start” in life — and he’s now doing the same for his own 17-year-old son, Michael James.

“My son is everything to me,” Michael tells the Sunday World. “Everything I do, I do for him. My life changed for the better the second Niamh (his wife) said, ‘Yes’, and then to have Michael James born and come into our lives has just been a blessing from God.

“Any time anybody ever asks me, ‘Why do you believe in God?’, my answer is, ‘Just look at my son.’ Who would have thought that I would have had a son like that… such a lovely young man. I’m so proud of him.”

BATON

Is he proud of the old man? “You’ll have to ask him,” Michael laughs. “We are very blessed. He’s such a great lad. We’ve never had a bad moment, we are just so lucky.”

“My father from Sligo and my mother from Carlow worked seven days a week [in Chicago]. My father worked as hard as he could on construction sites in freezing cold winters to give me a head start in my life, so that I could take it from there. My job now is, whatever happens in my life I will not drop that baton. I’ll hand it on to my son and give him a head start. That’s what life is all about.”

His Lord of the Dance show has made Flatley rich beyond anything he could have dreamt when he pursued a career in Irish dancing, but his life hasn’t been plain sailing for him. In January 2023 the entertainer was shocked to be diagnosed with an “aggressive” form of cancer, and he immediately underwent surgery.

Today, the dance icon is counting his blessings to have come out the other side with a clean bill of health. “I’ve been given the all clear, but I have to be monitored now every three months for the rest of my life in case it has spread anywhere,” Michael tells me.

“They’re still doing those tests, but as regards the main problem, I’m past it and I feel great and I thank God that I’m passed it.”

However, the traumatic experience, he reveals, made him take a hard look his life: “Lying on the [hospital] gurney waiting in the freezing cold hallways, staring up at a snow white ceiling and thinking to yourself, ‘Will I come out of this?’… because there are no guarantees with any of these things. Just thinking, ‘Have I done enough in life? Have I given enough in life? Have I helped enough people?’

“I’m the one who is always saying, ‘Follow your dreams, nothing is impossible.’ Have I done that with all of these things in my life?’” It’s 30 years since Flatley shot to fame on the 1994 Eurovision Song Contest with the Riverdance spectacular at the interval. He broke with the traditional Irish dancing style of arms rigidly down by the sides as he shot across the stage with his arms in the air, or hands hugging his hips.

He says: “Now there’s a Flatley

freestyle dance competition at the World Championships every year. Now young people are allowed to use their arms — in fact they are encouraged to do it. It’s taking off like a rocket. This is the direction that young people want to go, and I encourage them to.”

As a kid growing up in Chicago, Flatley says he was “terribly bullied” by his peers because he was doing Irish dancing. But he stuck to his passion and encourages others to do the same.

“I recently spoke to a young lad in New Zealand — his mother got in touch through our website — he’s 13 and he’s getting bullied at school,” Michael says. “I had a good heart to heart with him and I said, ‘I went through that, it’s just you being tested. Don’t give in. If this is what you love to do, follow your dream. Do not give in.”