Anton Du Beke has opened up about his heart-breaking financial struggle before finding fame on Strictly Come Dancing.
The 58-year-old has been on Strictly since its return in 2004, first as a professional dancer and then as a judge. His popularity has seen him featuring on other hit tv shows such as Hole in the Wall and Step Up To The Plate.
But before his television career took off, Anton says he was struggling financially. He admits the expression “I didn’t have a penny to my name” would have been an “understatement”.
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In a heart-breaking discussion with The Times Magazine, Anton said: “The sole had gone in my shoes but I couldn’t afford to get them resoled as I was going to spend that money on my next practice session. So I used to put pieces of cardboard in them.
“I once pushed my car a mile and a half home because I’d run out of petrol and didn’t have any money.”
Shirley Ballas with her fellow judges Anton Du Beke, Motsi Mabuse and Craig Revel Horwood
(Image: BBC)
Anton says money was “tight” when he was growing up as well. Living in a council estate in Sevenoaks, Kent, when he was younger.
He says a lot of the money brought into his childhood home was “wasted” on his father’s alcohol struggles. Anton previously told the BBC his father Antal once “stabbed him in the leg and stomach” as a child following a Boxing Day altercation.
Anton says he was walking to the hospital and waved down a police car. He explained: “I said ‘he’s in there with a knife’.
“Anyway, they carted him off and I ended up in hospital for three or four days. My only concern was getting back into the studio and dancing and the embarrassment of it.”
Anton, who won the New Zealand dance championships twice with Erin Boag, took up dancing when he was 14. He developed a passion for the sport after picking his sister Veronica up from the studio.
And while he says his mother supported his new love, it meant his relationship with his father was even further strained. Anton says he didn’t attend his father’s funeral when he died in 2001.