Motsi Mabuse struggled to find a dance teacher as a child because of racial prejudice in South Africa.
The 38-year-old professional dancer is now a judge on ‘Strictly Come Dancing’, but has revealed it was tough for her and her sister Oti – who is a dancer on the BBC show – to follow their dreams, as growing up during a "difficult time" in South Africa made it "tough" to succeed.
Motsi said: "Finding people to give us the instructions was difficult. It was a very difficult time in South Africa, so to be a little girl and push yourself in this type of dancing, where there are no other black girls, was really tough.
"And when we did get the chance to learn the waltz and the cha cha cha, at a weekend club, we were soon better than the teacher."
The dancer and her sister saw couples compete in a ballroom tournament whilst on holiday in Durban, and after begging their mother Dudu to let them learn, they finally began their dancing journey.
Dudu hired a room at a local kindergarten and enlisted a teacher to put on classes just for the girls, and Motsi will always remember the "sacrifices" her parents made to make their dreams come true.
She added: "Our parents made a lot of sacrifices because dancing is not the cheapest sport.
"The dresses are expensive, so my mum learned to sew, and she started a catering company to pay for the lessons and the travel abroad for competitions."
Motsi is "so thankful" for her dance career, as she says it saved her from the "bitterness" of her difficult childhood.
She explained to the Daily Mirror newspaper: "I’m so thankful for dance because if I had grown up with just the bitterness of the very hard childhood we had, and I’d never experienced the love of the dance world, then I probably would have been a very sad person."
Motsi Mabuse: Racism in South Africa almost ruined my dance career
