Three years ago Brendan Cole, the bad boy of ballroom dancing whose angry
outbursts have kept the nation enthralled, was virtually unheard of in this
country. His talents first gripped the nation when, as one of the
professional dancers in the first series of the BBC One show Strictly
Come Dancing, he swept the newsreader Natasha Kaplinsky to victory.
Viewers boggled as they watched normally sensible women such as Kaplinsky and
the opera singer Lesley Garrett visibly melt in the arms of their
snake-hipped partners. Men finally woke up to the notion that there might be
more to proper dancing than meets the eye. The show received a further
fillip from the rumours the winners of the first series were doing more than
just dancing together.
Kaplinsky and Cole both deny they had an affair. Yet whatever went on between
them put Cole firmly in the public spotlight. It was not without huge
personal cost: their on-screen flirtation ended Cole’s eight-year
relationship with his lover and professional partner, the fellow Strictly
Come Dancing instructor Camilla Dallerup, and Kaplinsky’s 11-year
relationship with Michael Barnard broke up. It is a subject that Cole now
refuses to discuss.
The latest twist is that Cole has somehow persuaded Dallerup to forgive him
for breaking her heart on national television and agree to partner him again
as they represent the UK in the first Eurovision Dance Contest next
month. It will bring together couples from 16 European countries, and Cole,
who has always been fiercely competitive, is determined to win.
Cole’s unstoppable drive would appear to stem from a difficult childhood in
New Zealand, where he fought hard against the negative stereotypes attached
to dancers. It didn’t help that his brother, also a dancer, is gay and Cole
felt under constant pressure to prove that he was not. His competitive drive
saw him win the New Zealand Juvenile, Junior and Youth Championships in
ballroom dancing and, when he teamed up with Dallerup aged 18, they went on
to win a series of competitions including the New Zealand Professional
Championship as well as reaching the semi-finals of the World Championships.
Fabulous physique and a sexy whisper
Cole, 31, recognises that his reputation as a Lothario – he has been linked
with a succession of minor celebs from Lady Victoria Hervey to Abi Titmuss –
hasn’t done his career any harm. He is 6ft 1in (1.85m) with a fabulous
physique and a strong New Zealand accent (he emigrated 12 years ago).
Dressed in a white shirt and jeans, he leans back into the sofa, supremely
confident, chatty and comfortable in his own skin. There’s no sign of the
petulance that has given his partners – and the Strictly Come
Dancing judges – so much grief. But sometimes his charm is just a tad
too self-conscious: he has an unnerving way of dropping to a sexy whisper
when remarking what a lucky boy he is to find himself in the company of so
many amazing women.
Cole also has an engagingly unEnglish way of admitting that he’s pig-headed,
even arrogant at times; indeed, he sees it as a strength. Certainly it is
his heated outbursts as well as his raunchy rumba which keep viewers coming
back for more – the last series of Strictly Come Dancingattracted
more than 10 million viewers.
“If I wasn’t the emotional person I am, I certainly wouldn’t be where I am
now,” says Cole. “I probably wouldn’t have succeeded in Strictly
Come Dancing, or in my business before that. If I’m doing something it
has to be 100 per cent. I’m pretty driven, but it all comes from passion and
emotion, from things in my childhood.”
Growing up in New Zealand, Cole admits, was a “bit of a nightmare”. His father
broke up with his mother at around the time Cole won his first ballroom
dancing competition at 7. He remembers: “I grew up before my time and yet I
wasn’t mature enough to deal with certain things. It’s not a sob story,
because I was strong, but it wasn’t easy.”
“The last thing I wanted to be called was gay”
Added to this, Cole was small and scrawny until his late teens, was taunted
mercilessly for being a dancer and had few friends at school. Cole was also
desperate to set himself apart from his gay older brother.
“Right from when you first understand sexuality, I was always trying to prove
that we weren’t in the same kettle of fish. I love my brother to bits, but
that’s not me. The last thing you want when you’re a heterosexual is to be
called gay.
“When I was young, I was called every bloody name under the sun. I think
that’s what’s made me a bit more feisty than I would have been. I’ve fought
and fought, constantly standing up for myself and trying to prove that just
because I dance doesn’t mean I’m a girl. I’ve probably been a bit too macho
because of that.”
To his mother’s dismay Cole left school at 16 to become a builder. Compared to
his relationship with his father, mother and son didn’t get on and he admits
he gave her a tough time. She was far from pushy and sent her three children
to ballroom lessons simply because she loved dancing so much herself.
Cole never seriously considered dancing as a career until he visited a South
London ballroom while competing in the World Youth Championships at 17. He
remembers: “The chemistry and the sexy people and the sweating was so
exciting. It blew my mind to see so many fantastic dancers, 20 times better
than anything I’d seen in New Zealand. I knew this is where I needed to be.”
A year later he was back in London.
In a rare moment of humility, Cole admits that until he met Dallerup he wasn’t
that good, and nor was she: it was their chemistry together which made them
dynamite and they went on to win a succession of international
championships. He still says she is his perfect partner.
At his peak, dancing for up to 12 hours a day, Cole was as fit as a top
athlete. Training for Eurovision or Strictly is nowhere near
as demanding, so these days he keeps fit by playing cricket and touch rugby
and running up escalators. At home he does the odd press-up and works out
with weights, but he doesn’t need to go to the gym – yet.
Using positive mental energy
“I’m always very aware of myself and I like looking good and feeling good, so
I’ll never allow myself to get past a certain point. But right now I’m quite
happy just being 31 and enjoying my life a little more than I used to when I
was competing and your body’s your tool. My body’s not my tool any more,
it’s just my body. I’m not a manic freak about fitness; I indulge like
everyone else. The day I notice a big change, I’ll be going to the gym and
doing whatever it takes to fix it.”
Cole has also worked on his natural drive by studying a number of self-help
books about positive mental energy, the latest being The Secret
(Simon & Schuster, £12) by Rhonda Byrne. “I understand my body and how
positive energies really can affect certain situations,” he says.
“I’ve seen things happen: when I’ve had too many couples around me on a
competitive dance floor the area has cleared because of the energy I’ve put
out. In the same way you can draw every single person in the audience to
what you are doing. It sounds like mumbo-jumbo but if you’re positive, with
a smile on your face, it’s going to affect people and things around you.”
His attitude to healthy living and alternative medicine has been influenced
by his father, a lifelong drinker and smoker who has suffered from leukaemia
for the past ten years.
Eighteen months ago his lungs and kidneys failed (for some reason unconnected
to his leukaemia, which doctors were unable to fathom) and he spent five
weeks unconscious in intensive care. He finally pulled through, but his
leukaemia then needed urgent treatment, and he was too weak for
radiotherapy.
As a last resort Cole’s father tried colour therapy, a complementary technique
in which, it is claimed, the energy of different light waves is used to
balance and heal. Within a month his white cell count had dropped and 18
months on it is almost back to normal levels. “It’s absolutely phenomenal,”
Cole says. “You think, what does it mean? Is it to do with positive
thinking? The doctors were baffled. To see Dad fighting for his life was
terrible – he’s my friend as well as my dad.”
“I enjoy having no responsibility”
In the days before Strictly Come Dancing, Cole pictured himself and
Dallerup breaking out of the dancing world and becoming “a bit like Rich-ard
and Judy”. For the moment that seems unlikely, not least because Dallerup
has a new boyfriend and dance partner.
Cole, meanwhile, is relishing his freedom: “I love being single,” he says, “At
first it was like, shopping for one – what’s that all about? But now I’m
enjoying having no responsibility, I can do what I want. I can go out
tonight and come home tomorrow morning and I’ve got no one to answer to.
Ideally I would prefer to be in a relationship, but the person has to be
bloody special. Camilla and I had a magical relationship until a situation
occurred and we just couldn’t handle it.”
Whether being back in each others’ arms in a professional sense for the first
time since 2004 reignites the passion – Cole himself admits that “when
you’re practising for Strictly Come Dancing it’s like a
boyfriend-girlfriend relationship” – remains to be seen, but if Cole is as
fiery as he has been with his other dance partners, they will certainly be
an fascinating act to follow.
Brendan Cole is representing the UK in the first Eurovision Dance
Contest, to be shown on BBC One next month
Thank you for a lovely article-am embarrasingly excited about the return of Strictly.Dance X just isn't the same.Good luck Brendan and Camilla-I am afraid if the voting is the same system as the Eurovision Song contest we won't do very well though.
Ruth, Rhyl, Wales