On a recent episode of Loose Women (Feb 16th)Craig Revel Horwood revealed why he first started dancing: “It just made me forget about everything and I looked in the mirror and I could fly! That’s how I felt, that I was free.”
The Strictly Come Dancing judge and star of the stage joined Kaye Adams, Linda Robson, Jane Moore and Kelle Bryan in the studio where Craig candidly spoke about his childhood and said:
“I’m from Ballarat near Melbourne, in Australia, which is of course very ‘ocker’, very outback and [in the 70s] being a ballet dancer is just not acceptable so I hid that at school.
“The reason I started dancing and put up with the teasing and everything else was because my father was a desperate alcoholic, an abusive one, and dance was the only way for me to really escape… It gave me that wonderful, wonderful feeling and I have that every time I go on stage, bizarrely. [Even] still, I don’t think that ever leaves you.”
Discussing if his family ever embraced his talent, he opened up to the panel and admitted: “Dad hated it” before adding: “I think it’s really important to get the message out there and I suppose I always look back on it and think you know, through the dancing thing, that he actually helped me get through it.
“He did come round, he fell in love when I was a drag queen. You know in a show called ‘La Cage aux Folles’, he came to see that and that broke down a lot of barriers. That’s when he came round to the whole thing and just loved it. I think it just resonated that two men can actually fall in love.”
To see the full interview visit www.itv.com/watch/loose-women
Loose Women weekdays from 12.30pm on ITV, STV and UTV as well as on ITVX and the STV Player.
