STRICTLY Come Dancing star Oti Mabuse has revealed she suffered “dark days” as a star of the show before eventually quitting last year.
The hugely popular pro shocked fans of the programme when she announced her departure after twice winning the glitterball.
After triumphing with actor Kelvin Fletcher in 2019 then with comedian Bill Bailey in 2020, the South African was fully expected to try for a sensational hat trick.
But Oti, 33, revealed the pressure of dealing with difficult celebrity contestants on the show often left her not eating properly, forcing her to turn to her husband, fellow dancer Marius Lepure.
She said: “Luckily my husband again has been an amazing person who has seen the dark days, the days where I’m in the shower crying with my clothes on because it’s so hard and it’s so overwhelming.
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“He’s seen me not eat, he’s seen me overeat, he’s seen me struggle with not being able to get the best out of someone.
"He’s seen me having to deal with ‘interesting personalities.’
“So, he’s the person that’s seen the behind the scenes at the point where I’d got to where I was like: ‘I think I’m finished.’ He was like: ‘Yeah’.”
She said she knew it came as a shock when, after being on the show for seven years and becoming one of its best known faces, she threw in the towel.
Oti, speaking on the All Change podcast, added: “I came from the biggest show on television. Every single human being on this planet, in this country, loves Strictly. People are obsessed.
“When you come from there, you are with that group, then when you decide you’re going to leave it's like: ‘What? What do you mean?’
"I was met with a lot of: ‘Why would you leave? You’re happy, you're at the top of your professional game, you professional game, you won the show?”
But Oti, whose sister Motsi is still a judge on Strictly, said she wanted to go on to other projects that once again “put the fire in my belly” and became a judge on Dancing on Ice and hosted her own dating show, Romeo & Duet.
She added: “I was really lucky at that point that just after winning my second title [on Strictly], ITV held their arms open and they were like ‘hey, come in!’
“So when I was jumping, there was somewhere to land. Even though I left, there was this whole world, a new family, that had opened doors for me and that’s luck and I have to be honest about that, I have to be grateful for that.”
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She and Marius, who have been married for nine years, revealed last month that they are now having their first child together.
They had been attempting to start a family and the minute they stopped “trying”, she discovered she was expecting.
