Strictly scary! (So how did Kristina dare fall for her husband?)
Utterly ruthless, she’s got an acid tongue and a stinging slap. Strictly’s new judge will have contestants quaking in their sequins
DEAR old Len Goodman, the beloved former head judge of Strictly Come Dancing, used to play up his grumpy moments, calling himself ‘a cup of tea in a world of skinny lattes’.
But he was just as often on his feet bellowing, ‘Winner winner, chicken dinner!’ and exclaiming, ‘ Pickle my walnuts!’ when some fancy footwork caught his eye.
But it seems we ought not to expect quite so much joyful encouragement from Shirley Ballas, the former British National champion who was this week revealed as Len’s replacement on the show.
Nicknamed the Queen of Latin, who has won every title in the dance world several times over, 56-year-old Shirley will join fellow judges Craig Revel Horwood, Bruno Tonioli and Darcey Bussell in this autumn’s season of Strictly.
Although she declared herself ‘so excited and over the moon’ to be chosen, contestants should be warned that Shirley comes trailing a formidable reputation.
A ferocious competitor, a relentlessly demanding mentor, and a take-no-prisoners wife with two divorces and a broken engagement behind her, she is also a mother who has demanded perfection — and got it.
As anyone who has worked with her knows, you cross Shirley at your peril.
It was a chance that Kristina Rihanoff, one of the show’s former professional dancers — who got together with Shirley’s second husband, Corky, in 2004 — was clearly willing to take.
But some might say Derek and Julianne Hough, an American brother and sister dance act whom Shirley met in the States and then raised in Britain alongside her own son, Mark, in a bid to turn them into world champions, should not have done so.
Derek, who lived with Shirley for ten years and is now a famous dancer in the U.S., recalled in his autobiography in 2014 that he was slapped around the face by her with great force after she caught him smoking as a teenager.
‘I swear I nearly swallowed my teeth,’ he wrote. ‘If you crossed Shirley you paid the price.’
His sister Julianne, a performer on Dancing With The Stars, the American version of Strictly, has also spoken of being raised by Shirley in a world which was ‘very Black Swan’ — referring to the Natalie Portman film which depicted the sinister side of the ballet world.
Speaking in a magazine interview in 2013, Julianne claimed her teenage years had featured physical and emotional ‘abuse’.
So who is Strictly’s controversial new recruit? And what is the truth about the diva — she favours cleavage, diamonds, furs and fantastic hair at all times — whose personal life makes the so- called Curse of Strictly look like nothing more than teenage tiffs?
Although Shirley has lived in the San Fernando valley of California for decades, she was born and raised in Wallasey, Wirral, by her mother Audrey, after her father left when Shirley was two.
Aged seven, she caught sight of a ballroom dance class while attending her Brownies meeting and begged to be allowed to take part. Within a year she was competing.
At 15, she moved to North Yorkshire in order to pursue a pairing with British Ballroom Champion Nigel Tiffany. The two of them got engaged when she was 16, and moved to London together.
However, that young love story was not to last. Aged 17, she was invited to try out for a partnership with topranking Latin dance pro Sammy Stopford. Nigel ended their partnership when she said she wanted to go to the audition.
No matter: Sammy said that after just one dance in a tiny studio in Balham High Road in 1979, he knew that he had found the girl of his dreams. In an interview in 1981 he said: ‘ Some partners — the best partners — are born for each other, not made.’
It was all deeply romantic and they were married in 1980. He was 24, she was 20.
As a dance partnership, they swept all before them, being named British Closed Champions and All England Champions and ending up ranked first in the world for Latin dancing.
At this point, with the world at her feet, her path crossed with Corky Ballas, a rich and charismatic Texan, who approached the couple at the 1983 Latin Championships in Quebec, looking for coaching for himself. ‘When I saw her, it was love at first sight,’ said Corky.
The feeling was mutual. For the second time in just four years, Shirley was head over heels in love.
She left champion dancer Sammy and their life in South London for novice dancer Corky, and moved to Houston, Texas. In 1984, they wed.
The scandal was the talk of the dance world. ‘A lot of people told me I’d be a wallflower and rot,’ she said. ‘They said good things will never come from being with this boy.’
Characteristically, she proved them all wrong. Corky, whose real name is Mark, was a spectacular student — and as focused on winning as his new wife was.
And although Shirley claims to have coached him from nothing to become a Latin champion, he had a serious background in dance.
His mother, Maria, was a flamenco dancer and his father George ran the biggest dance studio in America from 1964 to 1970.
Shirley and Corky competed for the U.S. in the Professional Latin field, and had an undefeated eightyear run as champions from 1984.
In 1986, their son Mark Ballas junior was born. Not that his birth overly interfered with her career. ‘I danced up to the day he was born,’ she said, ‘and did a competition six weeks afterwards.’
In 1990, Corky agreed to move to the UK to allow Shirley a chance to win the most prestigious titles again. He said at the time: ‘There’s an old Texas saying: “If you want to run with the big dogs, you can’t pee like a puppy.” ’
In 1995, Shirley and Corky won the British Open Latin title in Blackpool — the biggest and most prestigious championship in the world of ballroom and Latin dancing.
Having won the event at 23 with Sammy Stopford, Shirley had triumphed again at the age of 35 and the following year at 36 with Corky. She received a standing ovation, and remains the only person to have won the title with two different partners.
And victory was all the sweeter because she beat Sammy and his new partner into second place.
‘We had a goal and a challenge to overcome,’ she said. ‘My ex-husband said we would not be able to beat him — but we did.’
Sammy, who runs a dance school in Streatham and lives in Dulwich, South-East London, declined to comment on Shirley’s rise to fame this week.
In 1996, Corky and Shirley announced their retirement from professional dancing.
Two years later, on a teaching trip in Salt Lake City, she met Julianne and Derek Hough, then aged six and nine but already talented dancers.
With their parents going through a divorce, Derek asked Shirley if he could live with her so that she could coach him. Julianne followed three months later. Derek stayed for ten years, and Julianne — who danced with Shirley’s son Mark — for nine.
All three children went to the Italia Conti school, where they would dance two nights a week and all weekend. Twice a year, Derek and Julianne returned to Utah to visit their parents.
Shirley’s determination paid off when Julianne and Mark became the youngest couple to win the British Open To The World Junior Championships. While Derek credits Shirley for his success as a dancer, Julianne left Britain at the age of 15, saying she missed her U.S. home.
Julianne explained: ‘I didn’t want to be in that world any more. I was burnt out with dancing.
‘When I was 15 I finally said, “I’ve got to go home. I just want to be a normal kid and go to high school.” ’
In a 2013 interview, Julianne claimed she was ‘abused, mentally, physically, everything’, during her time in London.
Shirley was ‘livid’ over the suggestions. However, some reports suggest that by the time Julianne left
The scandal was the talk of the dance world ‘Shirley is not afraid to tell it like it is’
London, she and Corky were barely speaking, and she found the pushy mentoring too much to deal with.
Shirley said in response to Julianne’s claims: ‘I can show you picture after picture — she had the most privileged lifestyle. She was more than beyond happy.’
She added that when they were young: ‘I wrote in my finger on their foreheads, you are all stars.’
The row now seems to have been patched up, with Julianne talking only about her ‘great relationship’ with Shirley and Corky, and saying how ‘grateful’ she is.
Certainly there are no enduring hard feelings. Julianne was the first to send Shirley flowers this week to congratulate her on the Strictly role.
For her part, Shirley regularly posts pictures of herself cuddling up to Derek and Julianne, and celebrates their achievements just as she does those of Mark, her son.
Of Derek, famous in the UK for his brief romance with Cheryl Cole, Shirley says: ‘Even though he is not my birth son, he feels like he is my son.’ When Mark got married last year, Derek was his best man.
Perhaps one reason why Shirley grew so close to Derek was because, just as Julianne left home, so did her husband Corky.
In 2003, he quit the marriage and before long began a relationship with Kristina Rihanoff — the socalled Siberian Siren nearly 20 years his junior.
Shirley has never addressed the relationship with Kristina but has noted carefully that Corky’s ‘outgoing’ personality had made her unhappy.
Quite remarkably, she and Corky are good friends again, even dancing together at their son’s wedding in November 2016.
As for his liaison with Rihanoff, the five-year romance ended in 2008, not long after Kristina started work on Strictly.
Shirley’s appointment is said to mean that Kristina, 39, is highly unlikely to return to the show, which she left in 2015 when she had a baby with celebrity dance partner Ben Cohen.
It is reported that there was a row between the two women during Strictly’s 2015 Christmas party, where Kristina is said to have made rude remarks within Shirley’s earshot. Shirley is said to have been dignified, while Kristina stormed off.
However the two women are clearly on sufficiently cordial terms, with Kristina sending Shirley congratulations on social media and Shirley thanking her for them.
This week, Shirley’s great friend, dancer Wayne Eng, who has known her for more than 30 years, said that Shirley is simply a very strong personality, hence her habit of sailing into conflicts.
‘She doesn’t accept second best, it’s not in her nature,’ he says.
‘There is no doubt she is going to be ruthless — that is just who she is. She called me last week to tell me she was getting the Strictly head judge job and she could not have been more excited about it.
‘She is not afraid to tell it like it is and be completely honest.
‘Len is very straight to the point — that is why people like him.
‘And Shirley, too, certainly has plenty of that.’