STRICTLY’S Shirley Ballas broke down in tears and sobbed as she opened up about the devastating loss of her brother.
Shirley, 65, lost her brother David to suicide in 2003, which left her devastated as the siblings, who grew up together in Wallassey, Merseyside, shared a close bond.
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And on the latest episode of Paul C Brunson’s We Need To Talk podcast, which is released today, Shirley opens up about the pain of losing her brother when he was just 44 years old.
Shirley said: “My brother was either very up or very down. He was not often on the line…
“I’ve heard when we started off, before we moved on the housing estate, my brother was a very gentle soul, and I was the one always screaming and crying and wanting this and dancing round.
“My mother used to put me in the pram, strap me in and put me at the bottom of the yard.
“Because she said I was upside down doing somersaults in the pram. And my brother was really quite a gentle soul.
“Then we moved on the housing estate. I can’t speak for him because he’s since passed, but certain things went on in his life, you know, that were not great, which were communicated many, many years later.
“And I think it just, he had to toughen up, you know, became the tough guy.”
Shirley explained that David, who continued to live up north during the peak of her dancing career, became unwell in his early-to-mid 40’s while she was navigating life in London.
Their mother, who lived with Shirley down south, would visit David in order to help take care of him as he deteriorated through his illnesses.
She went on: “When he was 43, 44 he got poorly, lived in the north of England.
“I lived in the South and I remember my mum going to stay with him. She was with him for about six weeks.
“He seemed very low. He lost a lot of weight. We never really got to the root cause of – I think maybe, if I could just say his past was catching up with him maybe – And, I just think he just somehow went into a dark hole.”
She continued: “The thing is, with depression and mental health, I knew nothing about that. I was busy, I had my son, I had my husband, my mother lived with me and somebody else’s two children that I raised.
“So life was busy and I didn’t stop to go up there. My mother did.
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“Again, she wasn’t a great communicator, so she didn’t say, ‘you need to stop everything. You need to come up here’, you know?
“He faded fast. And then there was just one time when my son was singing at Saint Paul’s Church, and I said to my mum and brother, why don’t you come up for the week? And he goes, no, I’m feeling much better. Let mum go.
“And she went and he took his own life that weekend in our home, in our north of England home. So it was just, it was tragic. It was sudden. It was – you can’t even explain it unless you lose somebody.”
David died aged 44, on December 5, 2003, leaving behind a young daughter named Mary.
Shortly after David’s death, the mother of his daughter Mary died of alcoholism.
Shirley took in Mary and raised her as her own.
Shirley has previously said that she wished she could share her happiness with David, who suffered from depression, at seeing his daughter Mary grow up into an “amazing woman”.
The dance judge said: “Her mother died of alcoholism a few years after her father so she really had it tough.
“At first she kept picking the wrong men but now she’s got the most wonderful partner.
“She’s a forensic scientist for the NHS. I couldn’t be prouder of her.”
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