Shirley Ballas’s new crime novel ‘based on dance industry experiences’
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hirley Ballas has mentioned that the “bullying and backstabbing” in her new crime novel is predicated on experiences she has had throughout her time within the dance trade.
The Strictly Come Dancing decide’s new guide, Murder On The Dance Floor, follows a dance-detective duo as they uncover the reality after a promising younger performer dies in mysterious circumstances throughout Blackpool Tower Ballroom’s dance pageant.
Ballas, who seems on the quilt of Good Housekeeping’s October difficulty, informed the journal: “When I was writing my autobiography there were a lot of stories from my dance career that I couldn’t use – but when I shared them with people, their jaws hit the ground.
“So I asked the publishers if I could write a fiction book based on these experiences, and they loved the idea.
“I’ve worked with a brilliant writer called Sheila McClure and we’ve covered it all – bullying, backstabbing, dancers having sex in broom cupboards – all these things that I’ve seen, heard or witnessed.
“Don’t be fooled into thinking the dance industry is all baubles, bangles and beads.”
Ballas, 62, started dancing as a toddler and had a profitable profession together with profitable main competitions and instructing Tom Cruise to bounce.
She landed the highest job as head decide of Strictly in 2017 after the departure of Len Goodman.
She returns to the present this autumn after finishing a Skyathlon in the summertime which included driving the world’s quickest zipline, wing-walking 700ft within the air, and leaping 13,000ft from a aircraft
Ballas, whose brother took his personal life about 20 years in the past, took half within the collection of maximum duties to boost consciousness and funds for suicide prevention charity Campaign Against Living Miserably (Calm).
She mentioned: “It actually makes me quite emotional. I never imagined in a million years that, at 62, I’d be doing all these things.
“But what I’d say to anyone in their 50s, 60s and beyond is that we might not have the physique we once had – you might take your knickers off and your bum falls down to your heels, or your boobs fall down to your belly button – but that doesn’t mean we have to stop doing things, does it?
“In many ways, I feel like these are the happiest years of my life.”
The decide may even quickly be a grandmother, as her son Mark, who’s an expert dancer on the US model of Strictly, Dancing With The Stars, and his spouse BC Jean, introduced in June that they’re anticipating a child.
Ballas mentioned: “I can’t tell you how excited I am. Mark told us the news in such a thoughtful way.
“I was in Las Vegas with his dad, Corky, because Mark was performing out there, and after the show his dog came in wearing a little bandana.
“It took us a while before we finally clocked that on the front of the bandana it said ‘Baby on board’.”
Read the total interview with Shirley Ballas within the October 2023 difficulty of Good Housekeeping, on sale now.