I’m a Celebrity 2024 features Oti Mabuse, a mum of one who can sing, dance, skate and translate.
Since breaking through the UK ballroom scene as a professional on Strictly Come Dancing, Oti has now taken to the ice and the judging seat in Dancing on Ice.
But why did she leave Strictly after seven happy years on the show? Why is she fluent in German? And why did she opt to keep her daughter’s name a secret? Keep reading to find out…
I’m A Celebrity star Oti Mabuse’s dancing skills made her famous
Oti Mabuse is famous for her appearances as a professional on the TV series Strictly Come Dancing.
She appeared on the show from 2015 until 2021, taking part in the 13th through to the 19th season.
Oti partnered with former Emmerdale actor Kelvin Fletcher in 2019 and they danced their way to victory.
Winning the series again in 2020, when partnered with actor and comedian Bill Bailey, made Oti the second pro to win the show twice and the only pro to win twice in succession.
THEY’VE DONE IT! Bill and Oti are your #Strictly 2020 champions! @BillBailey @OtiMabuse #StrictlyFinal pic.twitter.com/dJJ5eS7cZO
— BBC Strictly ✨ (@bbcstrictly) December 19, 2020
She can do so much more than speak German
Oti was born in Pretoria, the capital of South Africa. She studied civil engineering at university, before life took her in a totally different direction – towards a career in professional ballroom dancing.
Mabuse won the South African Latin American Championship eight times. Following this she decided to broaden her dance horizons by moving to Germany where she continued to take home the titles.
Prior to starring as a professional in Strictly, Oti featured in the German series Let’s Dance. The professional danced on the eighth and ninth seasons of the show, where she was eliminated in sixth place and 14th place respectively.
The professional dancer can speak five – nearly six – languages: English, German and three South African languages including Afrikaans and Setswana, along with a touch of Romanian.
She studied German at school before the family moved to the country. In fact, she gained her first BBC opportunity when she assisted a British tourist struggling in a hotel. After helping him translate, she found out he worked for the broadcasting giant.
Let’s hope Oti Mabuse’s language skills can help her in the Bushtucker Trials in I’m a Celebrity 2024!
Is Oti related to Motsi Mabuse?
Motsi and Oti Mabuse are sisters and they share more than just the same last name. Eldest sister, Motsi, is also a professional ballroom dancer and works on Strictly.
Big sis joined Strictly as a judge in 2019, replacing Darcey Bussell. She also speaks five languages including English and German and three South African languages.
In August, the pair returned to Germany to see Adele play her penultimate concert in Munich.
While the Mabuse siblings have a lot of similarities, we’re not sure it Motsi would follow in Oti’s footsteps and join the I’m A Celebrity cast in the future…
Oti left Strictly Come Dancing but did make a brief comeback
Oti’s decision to leave Strictly after seven seasons was a huge shock to her fans.
“I came from the biggest show on television. Every single human being on this planet, in this country, loves Strictly. People are obsessed,” she said when speaking on the All Change podcast.
Driven by a desire to take on other projects, Oti quit the show. It was these projects that “put the fire in my belly”, she said.
She has been back for a couple of brief comebacks in recent years, though, both as a show choreographer and on spin-off It Takes Two.
Can Oti Mabuse ice skate?
The former Strictly Come Dancing champion is now seated in the judging hot seat of a different reality show. Oti is part of the judging panel on the ITV show Dancing On Ice, despite her lack of skating experience.
She replaced judge John Barrowman in the 14th season of the show and is expected to return in January when the show makes a comeback.
The ballroom dance expert believes her lack of experience on ice isn’t a problem as she understands her role in the panel. She told Saturday Kitchen host Matt Tebbutt: “I’m there for the performance and I understand what the pros and celebs are feeling.”
The star did confirm, however, she can ice skate a little: “I’ve skated, yes, in South Africa, but never professionally. Like, I’m not skating backwards and doing turns and tornado spins, not like that.”
The TV star has a set of powerful lungs too
The civil engineering graduate has really shown she can do it all. It turns out not only can she dance and skate, she has an incredible singing voice, too.
In 2021, when partnered with Ugo Moyne on Strictly, Oti shared a clip to social media from one of their pre-performance training sessions.
Ugo sat taking a break as Oti sang the intro lines to Sam Cooke’s ballad A Change Is Gonna Come to him.
Fans were wowed by her perfect-pitch performance. She also took the microphone again when on The Lateish Show with Mo Gilligan to perform a rendition of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.
We wonder if Oti Mabuse will show off her incredible skills while in the I’m A Celebrity camp?
She created a dance show for children during Covid
During lockdown, Oti continued to dance into the screens, and hearts, of the Great British public.
She started a new 15-part mini-series for CBeebies called Oti’s Boogie Beebies.
The show was to motivate preschoolers across the country to get movie and dancing, hosted from her own frontroom. The episodes all had movements based on a sweet themes, such as, Feeling Good, Shine Like the Sun and Monsters.
Oti Mabuse’s husband is a fellow dancer – and he’s been on TV
Marius Lepure, a 43-year-old Romanian dancer, is the husband of Oti. Marius participated in the same German show Let’s Dance.
The professional ballroom dancing pair met in Germany during a dance trial and have since become each other’s professional dance partners. They have competed in several competitions, winning gold at the German National Show Dance Championships.
The couple also worked together on Strictly when Marius appeared as a backing dancer. Mabuse has confessed she neglected her marriage when she was committed to the show during her appearance on the podcast We Need To Talk.
Marius popped the question to Oti on his birthday in 2014 and they got hitched in the same year.
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Birth of Oti’s first baby was a ‘traumatic’ experience
On August 26, 2023, the couple revealed on Instagram that Oti was expecting.
She captioned the image: “We feel finally ready and excited to share our wonderful news. This is new for us scarier than swimming with sharks, jumping off cliffs or even swinging from bridges but the best news we could have ever ask for.”
Oti gave birth to her baby girl prematurely at just 28 weeks, meaning the couple held off on announcing the birth through fear for their bundle of joy’s health.
This was a traumatic experience for the dancer as her newborn had to spend six weeks in the NICU.
Oti opted to keep her daughter’s name a secret as they were feeling “super protective over her”. She did share the family’s special naming tradition and that her mother, Dudu, had a huge part to play.
“My mother is the one who named her. My mum named all the children in the family. I think three months before she was born, the name was already set,” the Strictly star shared.
I’m A Celebrity starts on Sunday November 17 at 9pm on ITV1.
Read more: Oti Mabuse reveals shocking diagnosis
So what do you think Oti Mabuse will be like on I’m a Celebrity? You can leave us a comment on our Facebook page @EntertainmentDailyFix and let us know.