Oti Mabuse has candidly referred to her sister, Strictly Come Dancing judge Motsi, as a “pit bull” following a past disagreement.
Oti, 34, was a professional on Strictly, winning the series in both 2019 and 2020, but she is now set to enter the I’m a Celebrity…Get Me Out of Here! jungle. Motsi meanwhile has been on the Strictly panel since 2019.
It was early in South Africa-born Oti’s dancing career in Europe when the pair had a disagreement. Oti says she told her family she planned to enter into a dance partnership with now husband Marius Iepure that would see her moving away from home, reports Birmingham Live.
On the We Need to Talk podcast with Paul Brunson, Oti said: “I didn’t understand what was going on. I was like ‘this is not possible and what does it mean for me and my future?’.”
“Does it mean I leave everything in South Africa, does it mean I move to Germany, which is what I wanted. Will I fail?”
“If I go into the dance partnership initially and want to end the relationship does it mean the two are separate? Also my dad at that point was very apprehensive, he was like ‘do not follow this man’, and I’m like ‘I’m not following this man, I’m following my dream’.
“It just happened that he was a part of that plan. There was just a lot of apprehension because I had to do a lot of thinking.”
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Oti Mabuse has opened up about her initial concerns regarding the lack of “success stories” for young Black dancers in South Africa, with her sister Motsi being the only well-known figure. She shared: “All of them [my family] were like no. Motsi is like a pit bull.”
Oti also reflected on her own journey, saying: “It wasn’t because of him [Marius]. It was because I was leaving everything at home. It took her 10 years to get to a place where she felt okay and she didn’t need to have plan B.”
Despite her family’s reservations, Oti pursued her dreams: “She was like ‘I love you so much, this is so hard, I don’t want this for you’, so when I went ‘I’m doing it’, everyone was like ‘don’t.”
Both Oti and her husband Marius Iepure gained fame on Germany’s Let’s Dance before Oti joined Strictly Come Dancing for seven series.
Fans can catch Oti entering the I’m a Celebrity jungle tonight at 9pm on ITV One, while Motsi and the other Strictly judges will be back for the Blackpool special at 6.45pm on BBC One.
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