Strictly Come Dancing star reveals details of surgery which left her learning to walk again

A Strictly Come Dancing star has opened up about the surgery that left her learning to walk again. Toyah Willcox is one of many contestants on the new series of the long-running BBC show and has been paired up with professional dancer Neil Jones.

The 66-year-old performed with her partner for the first time on Saturday night, taking on a tango. But before the performance, Toyah shared in footage filmed during a rehearsal for the first live show that there could be moves that her body isn’t comfortable with.

She then took the opportunity to mention the corrective surgery she’d had, reports the Mirror. Discussing the tango, she said: “You have to twist your body – it’s all about pivoting, which is something I’ve avoided for about 30 years.”

Asked how she was finding training, she said: “Obviously, there’s gonna be moves you give me that my body is just gonna go ‘stop now. When I was 51, because I was born with one leg just under 2 inches longer than the other, I had corrective surgery to make my legs the same length, but then I had to learn to walk again.”

It isn’t the first time that Toyah – who’s experienced various health issues in her life, including having been born with a twisted spine – has spoken about the surgery she had in 2009. She’s previously said that she was “reinvented” by it.

She said: “I’ve had a titanium hip replacement and my leg shortened, so now it’s the same size as the other one. I no longer have to wear special shoes. It took me two months to learn to walk again.”

The performer went on to tease in an interview in 2011 that, as a result, she had been experiencing “full mobility for the first time” in her life. She further stated that she had been able to move around the stage “more freely” than before.

And whilst speaking to the Daily Mail that same year, she revealed that she had been born with “shallow hip sockets” as well as one leg shorter than the other. Opening up about the subsequent surgery, Toyah said in the interview with the outlet: “In the past two years my right hip became a nightmare so I had a replacement. I had to use crutches and learn to walk again, but it transformed my life.”