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Strictly Come Dancing legend Anton Du Beke recalls moment his father stabbed him: "It's not the defining moment of my life"
In his new memoir, Strictly legend Anton Du Beke reveals the sliding door moments that led him to the ballroom.
BBC/Ray Burmiston
- Bill Borrows
Published: Monday, 2 November 2026 at 5:00 pm
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This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine.
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"Everybody knows everything about me from about 2004 when we started Strictly,” explains Anton Du Beke from behind the piano in his enormous living room. “Everything that’s worth reading, they’ve read.
"And even when I speak about Hannah and the children [he and wife Hannah have nine-year-old twins, but presumably you already know that] and playing golf and all the things that I love to do, people know all that stuff, so I didn’t think that would be of much interest to anybody.”
He’s wrong, of course. Two separate people tell me there’s “something about him”. Another insists he’s her “favourite dancer/judge/person/everything”. Lack of interest in the professional-ballroom-dancer-turned-TV-presenter does not seem to be a thing. Which is just as well, because he has a memoir out now in time for Christmas.
For the reason he has already outlined, the 60-year-old is diving into his past for Steps in Time: the Moments That Made Me – and it might not be the story you’re anticipating. Elements of his journey from suburban 1970s Kent may be familiar to many of us – mooching around for hours without adult supervision, riding Chopper bicycles (although Anton had to make do with a Tomahawk), conkers, three television channels – but some things are anything but typical.
Strictly Come Dancing 2026 judges Craig Revel Horwood, Shirley Ballas, Motsi Mabuse and Anton Du Beke. BBC/Ray Burmiston/BBC Creative
“I often think about what my parents had to come through in postwar Europe. My father was Hungarian and my mother is Spanish. I have so much admiration for what they did. They were living in dictatorships, but then – with no money, nothing – decided to leave and find a better life.” He pauses. “But that’s only worth it if you then build the life that you’re hoping to improve.”
The pause and change of pace is a reflection upon his relationship with his late father. His beloved mother Ascensión, now living with early-onset dementia, worked two jobs to bring up Du Beke and his two younger siblings, and was eventually able to buy her own council house. “She had her goal and she achieved it through hard work. That was instilled in us growing up.”
His father, however, was a violent alcoholic who called his son a maricón (Spanish for “gay boy”) for his love of dancing and, when Du Beke was in his mid 20s, stabbed him. That led to his arrest and the couple’s divorce. “I don’t want people to give me sympathy… and it’s not the defining moment of my life,” he writes in the book. “I try not to spend too much time thinking about him.”
The young Du Beke found his escape in the classic film musicals that made their way on to TV at Christmas and Easter in the 1970s. “I remember when I first saw Fred Astaire dancing with Ginger Rogers in Top Hat, and again in Carefree where he’s hitting golf balls while tap dancing,” he smiles.
“He was always so wonderfully dressed, and had a great looseness of style. I was drawn to him immediately and he’s the standard against which I’ve measured everything I’ve ever done.” He now had a role model. “There was a number in The Band Wagon called Dancing in the Dark, which sort of changed my life. I went, ‘That’s exactly what I want to do. That.’”
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His memoir frequently stops to highlight a “sliding door” moment in his life, but soon after discovering Fred Astaire, there was a significant one when collecting his sister from a dance class. “I was 14 and noticed there were far more girls than boys, and thought, ‘Hang on a minute,’ ” he laughs.
“Next time, I went a bit earlier and the teacher roped me in. It felt right immediately. I knew I could do it.” With all the determination and application he had learnt at home, and working glamourless jobs delivering gas bottles and selling carpet cleaner to pay for dance lessons, he then set about becoming the best dancer he could be on the professional ballroom and Latin dancing circuit.
“That was the path I wanted to take. Ballroom dancer. Compete. Compete. Compete,” he recalls. “When I finished competing, I wanted to move into the world of theatre. Television was the thing I wanted to do least because I remembered the old Come Dancing. It was all ‘Reg is a truck driver by day but by night he’s sewing on sequins to Gladys’s dress’, with no appreciation of the work that goes into it. I wanted to be taken seriously. I wasn’t sure how a move into theatre was going to happen but that was my goal and I thought I’d work it all out later.
"Then Strictly Come Dancing came along and the world shifted.”
Anton Du Beke’s Steps in Time comes to a halt at this point. But then you all know everything about him from about 2004 onwards. Apparently.
The latest issue of Radio Times is out on Tuesday – subscribe here.
Strictly Come Dancing airs Saturdays at 6.30pm and Sundays at 7.10pm BBC One. Catch up on BBC iPlayer.
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Bill Borrows
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