TELLY JUDGE
the technical nitpicking of Shirley Ballas, the warm and emotional Motsi is holding her own.
She cried tears of joy as she watched her sister Oti, 29, and celebrity partner Emmerdale actor Kelvin Fletcher, 35, waltz off with this year’s glitterball.
What started as a joke between the sisters to replace Darcey Bussell when the former Royal Ballet dancer stepped down last year became reality weeks later when the BBC called Motsi.
It was a controversial choice at the time but beneath those smiles and sparkly ballgowns lies a steely will to succeed.
Amused at how her fellow judges must view her, she says they sometimes look at her “like I’m an alien!”
But looking fab-yule-ous in a dazzling white and glitter ballgown, Motsi wrapped up her debut year as she joined Craig in his snowflake outfit for the end-ofyear dance party after Debbie McGee and Kevin Clifton won Strictly’s Christmas Special.
For the little girl from the town of Mankwe, her journey to the panel of Strictly started when she fell for the glam world of ballroom dancing aged nine.
After moving to Pretoria aged five with her parents, Motsi decided not to join the family law firm, instead learning to dance. But it was tough being the only black kid in a ballgown in a country still suffering segregation and the effects of apartheid.
“People would laugh at us and call us names but we kept coming back – and then we beat them.”
After coming runner-up in a national ballroom contest, the 18-year-old Motsi met German dancer Timo Kulczak at the British Open Championship in Blackpool in 2000 and moved to Germany to marry him. Her sister Oti, eight at the time, joined her in Hamburg 10 years later for dance training.
In 2013, Motsi was crowned winner of the German Latin dance contest with her now-husband Evgenij and her marriage to
Kulczak ended. The sisters have never let their careers affect their relationship and Motsi said Oti has been totally supportive. “After the first show we were in tears, so proud of each other.”
Getting a job on Strictly was never just luck, as she said of her childhood, “doors were never open. We had to fight our way in.”
She also revealed on The Graham Norton Show that the BBC hasn’t told her if she will return for the next series of Strictly, likely to be in September. “I’m waiting for that call,” she says.
She also confessed she didn’t reckon Oti would win the last series: “I really didn’t think she would, to be honest,” she said.
For now, the loving mum – who hasn’t publicly named her daughter – is going to take a well-earned rest with her family and won’t be dancing on New Year’s Eve.
She says: “To watch people dancing is the most entertaining thing on the planet and, as they take in more alcohol, the better it gets!”
■ Strictly’s Christmas Special got an average of 5.5 million viewers, third behind the Queen’s Speech and ratings winner Gavin & Stacey.