SHE dazzles the nation every weekend with her wild and wonderful hairstyles.
But for Strictly judge Motsi Mabuse, styling her hair is about more than just showcasing her glossy locks.
For Motsi Mabuse, styling her hair is about more than just showcasing her glossy locks
Motis with Strictly judges Anton Du Beke, Shirley Ballas and Craig Revel Horwood
The 41-year-old, who suffered racism as a young dancer in South Africa, says it has helped free her from the oppression she faced growing up under Apartheid.
Speaking ahead of this weekend’s show, Motsi admits those experiences still affect her now, saying: “If I’m totally honest, you carry it all your life.
“As a child, you question yourself. Then you are not told to really believe yourself because every time somebody tries to teach you to believe in yourself, another person tears you down.
“So even things that I’m really loving to celebrate now, which seem so little to other people, like celebrating my own hair — the way my hair grows, what I can do with my hair — it’s something as a child I didn’t see.
“It was always more like, ‘Hide your hair, get your hair under control’.”
The mum-of-one says celebrating her hair on the BBC dancing show is helping her to heal those past traumas.
She said: “For me it’s like, ‘Oh, my hair, it’s repairing and healing all of those things that you discover as you go on.”
Motsi’s hairstyles are so popular that fans have even made an Instagram account dedicated to them, with one viewer calling for her hair to have its “own show”.
So far this series, she has already sported impressively sculpted topknots as well as long, blue braids.
She says: “It is different every week and it’s mostly just working with my hair stylist and looking at what we can do.
“It takes the whole day. But I wanted to indulge the feeling to see what is possible for my sort of hair.”
Showbusiness is a long way from Motsi’s earlier dreams of becoming a lawyer.
She first pursued law at the University of Pretoria, before turning her attention to dancing and moving to Nuremberg, Germany, at 18.
In 2003, she married dance partner Timo Kulczak, 45, but they divorced after 11 years, in 2014.
A year later she struck up a romance with dancer Evgenij Voznyuk, 38, and they married in 2017 and had a daughter the following year.
Between her TV commitments, the couple run a dance school together.
But Motsi, who was speaking at the Cheltenham Literary Festival, says becoming a mum has also helped her to heal past traumas, forcing her to confront the type of mother she wants to be.
She recalls how, when she was growing up, her parents were always in “survival mode” and never affectionate — the opposite to her husband’s parents who now live with them after fleeing the war in Ukraine.
She said: “When I became a mum I discovered this feeling of, ‘OK, I need to be clear of who I am because I have to bring up this wonderful girl’.
“It’s so weird, my husband and his parents, who are living with us right now, are so affectionate.
Motsi said: ‘Celebrating my own hair — the way my hair grows, what I can do with my hair — it’s something as a child I didn’t see’
“I am very affection-ate with my child but we didn’t have that because, for our parents, in their mind, it was just, ‘Keep these kids safe’. All of that affects you later on.
“At dance competitions when it was clearly unfair and your parents are going ‘No, it wasn’t unfair, you have to be better’.
“Quite early on, our boundaries got taken away from us and I’m learning now to kind of say ‘no’ without having to question myself.”
Motsi — who speaks eight languages — shot to fame in Germany in 2007 after dancing on RTL dance show Let’s Dance.
She joined the judging panel in 2011.
But her fame soared in the UK in 2019 when she replaced Darcey Bussell on the Strictly panel.
Talking about landing the top gig, she says she had to enter the country using a fake name to keep her new job under wraps.
She said: “Everything was so top secret. I was flying into the country with a fake name.
“When I landed, I landed in the most beautiful hotels but I was in the dungeon. I was like, ‘What’s going on?’ I had a lot of preparation — media training and all of that.
“I’m still going, ‘What’s going on?’ I’m doing the same show in Germany and none of this happens.”
But she added: “I’m so grateful, I’ve been taken in with open arms, I’m different to Darcey — we know that, guys.”
Motsi has now formed close bonds on the show and says fellow judge Craig Revel Horwood, 57, is her “TV husband” — adding: “Me and Craig argue like husband and wife.”
Of this year’s contestants, she loves former England footballer Tony Adams, 56, saying, “He’s adorable”.
She wants to give TV presenter Hamza Yassin, 32, a “hug”, while being bowled over by singer Fleur East, 34, who came back fighting after being in the bottom two.
In terms of who she would love to see on the dance floor in future, her wish list includes Barack Obama, Oprah Winfrey and top actors Andrew Garfield and Tom Hiddleston.
But of her weekly experience on the show, she says it takes hours afterwards to come down from the adrenalin high.
It’s like you’ve been on a roller-coaster,” she said.
“By the time it is time to go, you think you are crazy. There is no way to go to bed so I go in my home and dance it out.
“And then on Sunday you lie flat. It’s wild.”
Motsi’s fame soared in the UK in 2019 when she replaced Darcey Bussell on the Strictly panel
Motsi’s hairstyles are so popular that fans have even made an Instagram account dedicated to them
