Oti Mabuse has revealed the heartbreaking reason she cut off her mother Dudu for a year after a fall out over her career path – and opened up on their relationship.
The Strictly Come Dancing star joined the panel of Loose Women on Friday morning as discussions turned to Brooklyn Beckham‘s relationship with his parents.
It was revealed today that relations between the Beckhams broke down so completely last summer that at one point, eldest son Brooklyn asked his parents to contact him only via his lawyers.
Brooklyn, 26, said he didn’t want his parents to contact him, or make public statements about him on social media in an exchange of legal letters between son and parents.
Discussing the breakdown of family relationships in the wake of the news, Oti, 35, was quizzed on whether she had fallen out with any family members by fellow ITV daytime star Kay Adams.
The professional dancer revealed that she had once gone a whole year without speaking to her mother after they disagreed over her choice of career.
Oti Mabuse revealed the heartbreaking reason she cut off her mother Dudu for a year after a fall out over her career path – and opened up on their relationship
The professional dancer revealed that she had once gone a whole year without speaking to her mother Dudu after they disagreed over her choice of career (pictured: Dudu with Oti’s sister Motsi Mabuse)
Oti, who has a civil engineering degree after her family applied on her behalf for the course, admitted it all boiled over when Dudu expressed her disappointment.
She told Kay, 63, and fellow Loose Women panellists Nadia Sawalha and Jane Moore: ‘I have a similar relationship – for me, in my family, especially when anybody is upset, we just don’t talk to each other.
‘Like, I need space because what will come out my mouth, I can’t take it back.
‘But I’ve had situations like with my mum, leaving engineering and saying to her, “I’m going to be a professional dancer,” we didn’t talk for a year.
‘A whole year – and I think it’s love, “I paid for this future for you, I want you to be safe, dancing is not maybe a safe career and it’s really upsetting you’re not doing what I want,” but for me it was like, I can’t handle that in my life.
‘I needed her to really support me so that when I walk into a room, I know that I’m being supported by my whole family, and until we had a Kumbaya moment, we didn’t speak.
‘I had a glass of wine, and then I was like, “Okay, talk.”‘
She previously said of her mother’s reaction to leaving her civil engineering path on Desert Island Discs: ‘[My parents] were against it, absolutely against it.
Discussing the breakdown of family relationships in the wake of the news, Oti, 35, was quizzed on whether she had fallen out with any family members by fellow ITV daytime star Kay Adams
Oti, who is mother to one daughter, who she welcomed with husband Marius Lepure in 2023, explained she has had to threaten her mother with ‘not seeing’ her little one if she doesn’t ‘change her language’
‘They were like, this is the worst decision ever. But I really, really wasn’t happy because being an engineer full time meant that I couldn’t dance.
‘I didn’t feel like that was something that I was ready to give up at that point… it just didn’t sit right with my soul, and it didn’t sit right with my heart.’
Loose Women discussions soon turned to grandparents, where Oti admitted that she still occasionally clashes with Dudu over the way she speaks about her grandchildren.
Oti, who is mother to one daughter, who she welcomed with husband Marius Lepure in 2023, explained she has had to threaten her mother with ‘not seeing’ her little one if she doesn’t ‘change her language’.
The South African born star added: ‘In my African culture, we just say what we want, we’re just very brutally honest – but if my mum says something I don’t like, maybe about the baby’s weight, I’m like, “Change your language or you’re not going to see her.”
‘Sometimes when you’re parents say what they say, it gives you tough skin, but as a mother now, that hard skin is a shield [for my daughter] now.’
Nonetheless, Oti insisted that she and her mother now have a good relationship, and that Dudu is adored by her granddaughter, adding: ‘She’s an amazing grandmother, she’s the favourite grandmother.’
In 2019, Oti’s sister Motsi opened up on how her mother helped her get into dance classes as a child, after her and Oti struggled to find a dance teacher to learn from growing up due to racial tensions during Apartheid in South Africa.
Loose Women discussions soon turned to grandparents, where Oti admitted that she still occasionally clashes with Dudu over the way she speaks about her grandchildren
In 2019, Oti’s sister Motsi – who is a judge on Strictly Come Dancing – opened up on how her mother helped her get into dance classes as a child
Motsi, 44, who is a judge on Strictly Come Dancing, spoke candidly to The Mirror about her struggles as a child to get lessons for both her and Oti, as it was a ‘difficult time’ in the country.
She explained: ‘Finding people to give us the instructions was difficult.
‘It was a very difficult time in South Africa, so to be a little girl and push yourself in this type of dancing, where there are no other black girls, was really tough.
‘And when we did get the chance to learn the waltz and the cha cha cha, at a weekend club, we were soon better than the teacher.’
She went on to explain that her mother Dudu was so keen to support her children’s dream she hired a room at a local kindergarten and found a teacher to help them.
Her and Oti’s mother also learnt how to sew garments to help make them dresses for dance shows, and also created a catering company to help fund their lessons and trips abroad for competitions.
The dancers were born in Kraalhoek, Bophuthatswana, in 1981, but moved with her mother, a teacher, and lawyer father, Peter, to the township of Mabopane near the South African capital Pretoria in 1983.
Living in ‘Block C’ – the streets had no names – she was forced to travel to her school on a separate bus to white children under a government run by P.W. Botha.
Dancing was a way for the siblings to escape the reality of racial tensions in South Africa, and they fought to overcome the prejudice they faced.
She also revealed that the family suffered tragedy when her older half-brother, Neo, took his life at 18.
In 1995, shortly after the end of apartheid, Motsi and her family left the township and moved to a larger house in a Pretoria suburb.
Throughout this time, her parents had sent her and sisters Phemelo and Oti to private school and dance lessons.
Recalling those years, Motsi said her achievement can still bring her to tears.
She told how, on a recent holiday, ‘I started crying because I was like “wow”, who would have ever known when we started that I would end up here. It’s just a story that is unbelievable.’
Loose Women airs weekdays from 12:30pm on ITV1 and ITX
