Brian Redmond As the finale of Dancing With The Stars approaches, Jess O Sullivan catches up with Judge Brian to get the lowdown
He might be the toughest judge on Dancing With the Stars, but off-screen Brian Redmond is a banter-loving family man. He talks to Jess O Sullivan about why it’s important for kids to watch the show, as well as his daughter’s very unusual celebrity crush
While it’s admirable that Brian Redmond can look the Dancing with the Stars’ contestants dead in the eye and deliver a wry critique of their performances without worrying about offending them or the viewers, he isn’t totally immune to backlash. It usually comes when he gets home after the show. “My wife Jen gives out to me all the time. It started in season two because she was a big fan of Bernard O’Shea and my daughter Anna, who was three at the time, was and still is a huge Marty Morrissey fan which is something I never thought I’d say. So my daughter and my wife being fans of, in my opinion, two of the worst dancers on the show, didn’t lead to a harmonious household on a Sunday evening.” Hilariously, Brian says that Anna still thinks Marty is the best dancer and wants to know why he’s not on the show this year.
Brian is definitely a born performer. Anyone expecting to meet ‘the nasty judge’ we see on TV on Sunday nights will be sorely disappointed – he is quite the opposite in real life. “This weekend, we were contacted by a young lad who goes to ballroom dancing classes in Meath. He was invited to sit in the front row during the show. Unfortunately he panicked and didn’t come, because he didn’t want his friends seeing him. We all put little videos together for him and sent them on to him just to say don’t be worried about what people think, just get involved.” Brian isn’t sharing this story to prove how nice he really is underneath the no-holds barred judgements; it is to illustrate that every day, young people all over the country are afraid to do what they love for fear of being ridiculed.
Now in its third season, Brian feels that DWTS is playing a part in breaking down these gender stereotypes and that it’s doing a lot for young boys in particular. “If you look at the males involved in the show: firstly, you’ve got me, then you’ve got Nicky Byrne, former footballer, who played for the Leeds youth team. He did Strictly in the UK. Then you move into the pro-dancers. Curtis is 6’2”, and a solid bloke. Kai is 6 foot, a former youth footballer with Southampton football club. His father is a professional football scout, his brother plays professional football for Portsmouth, and he’s a ballroom dancer. You’ve got all these big, physical guys, loving being dancers, not just in their youth, but now as adults.”
Then of course you have the celebrities, Peter Stringer, Aidan O’Mahony, and Denis Bastick to name-check but a few. “It’s great. I think it’s an important part of the platform that we have, to be able to say to young people, not just for ballroom dancing, but for for any art form or any activity that they want to do, that they think others might think isn’t cool – just go and do it.”
Brian hates the fact that children feel they have to fit a certain mould because of their gender. “We always talk about how tough it’s been historically to be a woman; but in certain ways, it can be tough to be a man. We’re talking about treating people fairly, and it’s nice for not only women to be treated fairly but men as well. I think we should be saying that as an individual you can do whatever job you want to do.”
Married with two children, a boy, Alex (9), and a girl, Anna (4), he sees how gender has little to do with personality. “Growing up, if you turned Alex upside down he freaked out. He didn’t enjoy the rough and tumble. Anna is completely the opposite, so I’ve got a boy and a girl, and stereotypically, Anna is the one who is more rough and tumble than Alex.” Even so, Brian says that Anna is the more likely of his two children to follow in his footsteps, while Alex seems to love the production side of showbiz, often following the crew around the set. “He’s been out on the OB truck and has seen what the directors do and seems to be interested in that side of things. Whereas Anna has already told me that she’s going to have two jobs: One during the day and then at night she’s going to be a dancer on DWTS. She’s already told me that my score for her is going to be 19, because she’s going to be the best dancer in the world.”
If Anna does follow Brian into dance, that will make it the fourth generation of dancers in his family, a passion which seems to have brought good fortune to the adroit clan. “It started with my grandmother Annie Redmond, who is 94, and still watches the show every week. At Christmas, she’ll have a bit of a jig in the kitchen with one of us. Then my parents met through dancing, and then Jen and I have met through dancing.”
I’m very lucky in marrying Jen, because she used to dance a bit when she was younger, and her brother danced, so she understands the business
Brian discovered his love of ballroom dancing at the tender age of 11, and went on to perform in some of the world’s most prestigious venues, including London’s Royal Albert Hall and the Kremlin Palace in Moscow. He retired from competitive dance in 2004 and returned to Ireland where he began coaching, eventually opening his own dance studio in Dublin. Brian met his now wife Jen, when he was coaching her younger brother, something he is very grateful for as he knows other pro dancers whose relationships didn’t manage to go the distance. “I’m very lucky in marrying Jen, because she used to dance a bit when she was younger, and her brother danced, so she understands the business even if she’s not involved in it. So it’s not a busman’s holiday when I get home; I get a break.”
He feels that for anybody to be in a relationship with somebody who is completely outside of the dance world is di cult, both logistically and emotionally. “It’s very di cult because of the amount of time that you spend travelling and competing all over the world. But it’s also very di cult for a partner because you’re spending all this time with another man or another woman, training, practicing and travelling together.” So it is almost like having two very similar but di erent relationships. “It always presents challenges, so I was lucky that I had that part of my life, and then a erwards I have the life that I have now.”
Although anyone who follows a passion to professional level surely requires a huge amount of understanding from a partner, Brian feels that being a pro dancer is something di erent altogether. “Peter Stringer wasn’t playing on a rugby eld with 14 good-looking women who were spending all their time with him, dancing rumbas. It’s one thing to say, ‘Oh Peter’s out of the house but he’s down the eld with 14 burly guys and I’m okay with that’ as opposed to down the dance studio with 14 women. Yes, the time commitment is the same, but on an emotional level, it can present challenges for sure.” To overcome this challenge it’s not just that a partner has to be self-con dent; Brian also feels that there is an onus on the pro to make them feel certain. “You as the dancer have to be very con dent, clear, honest, all those things, so that the other person can feel secure in their position.”
ere’s no escaping chemistry of course, and it is an essential component of a good dance partnership, but Brian feels the word is sometimes misused in the context of professional dance. “Quite o en, the words we use have connotations that we take up incorrectly. ere has to be ‘good chemistry’ between every couple but if you changed that word to a ‘good working relationship’, then it doesn’t have the same connotation, even though it means the same thing.”
Over the three series the judges have seen 33 celebrities coupled up, and some of them have done 12 performances. Brian has seen hundreds of performances over the years, but even so he loves what he does and he loves that it has opened up ballroom dancing to a new, younger audience. “Having these young sporting heroes, TV heroes that young people can connect to, makes them think that ballroom dancing isn’t just something my granny does on a ursday night down the local bingo hall. As a guy myself, particularly for young boys. I think it’s absolutely brilliant. Aidan O’Mahony wasn’t the best dancer in season one but he was a great champion because he was a male sports star, a Garda, GAA legend, a tough guy, willing to put on the sparkly shirts. If that can be fun for him, why can’t it be fun for everyone else?”
Brian sees for himself with his own colleagues on the set of DWTS that the guys are as comfortable discussing the sports as putting on the Spandex. “It’s such a contrast. We’re out sitting having lunch; o en it would be myself, Peter, Denis, Nicky, Johnny Ward talking about the soccer or the rugby, and two hours later we’re all dressed up wearing sparkly gear and having just as much fun doing that.” He recalls his son Alex going to school recently, dressed up for World Book Day as a character called the Demon Dentist in a book of the same name by David Walliams. He wondered how he would get on, as the Demon Dentist happens to be a female character. “When I picked him up from school and asked him what people thought of his costume, he said ‘ ey thought it was great. We had a bit of a laugh.’ He didn’t feel like anyone had been negative towards him. But I think that’s because as a society, we have improved, but also it’s important to help the child feel con dent in themselves, so that if they do face a little bit of negativity it doesn’t a ect them too much. at’s what I always felt ballroom dancing gave me. I o en get asked whether I faced some slagging as a kid. Yeah, probably. But the con dence that I was given by my family and my involvement in dance, allowed me to feel con dent enough that it didn’t a ect me.”