Professional dancer and Strictly Come Dancing star Kevin Clifton has revealed he is taking a break from the hit BBC show to focus on being a dad and spend more time with his daughter Minnie, who he shares with TV presenter Stacey Dooley.
Kevin and Stacey found love in 2018 when they were partnered together on the hit dancing show and managed to make it all the way to the end, taking home the trophy. They then welcomed their first child together in January this year.
Kevin, 40, has been working non-stop as he has been working on back-to-back stage shows and now his daughter is five months old, he has decided to take a well earned break from the ballroom.
The new dad revealed the intensity of his work to Digital Spy where he said: “It went Singin' in the Rain, Rock of Ages, The War of the Worlds, Burn the Floor, then I did The Games on ITV, Who Do You Think You Are? and then back to Singin' in the Rain on tour. Then I started rehearsals for Strictly Ballroom the day after I finished Singin' in the Rain.
"By the time I finish in mid-July it will have been a 10-month tour of Strictly Ballroom. So, since we came out of Covid it's just been back-to-back non-stop.”
The dancer, who doesn’t want to miss spending time with his family of three continued: "So, for the rest of this year I've decided I'm going to take a break from all performing work just to be a dad. I just don't want to miss any of Minnie. So, yeah, my plan is to take a break as soon as this contract finishes."
In a recent episode of Who Do You Think You Are, the dancer had an emotional journey when he learnt about his family history.
The journey, which led him all the way to Canada, saw him attend an orphanage where he learnt that his great-great-grandmother, Emma Grace Elizabeth had been put as a child.
Keen to find out more information on how she wound up there, he soon learned that his great-great-great grandfather was 40 years old when he married his great-great-great grandmother who was just 16 at the time.
He described the experience as “not comfortable” when he learned about a court case where his great-great-great grandfather had “blackened” his wife's eyes.
A heartbroken Kevin told the cameras: “Grace was in a violent and abusive relationship. Everything was stacked against her. It’s so unbelievably unfair. My ancestor was a villain.”
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