This is unthinkable, dear! Bruno Tonioli has quit Strictly Come Dancing, but has he quit or has the producers voted him in as a celebrity with a dubious cha-cha-cha?
“There’s no animosity, it was a mutual decision with both of them saying, ‘Listen, this isn’t going to work like it used to,'” insists the flamboyant Italian choreographer turned TV judge, speaking freely for the first time since his departure. announced in May However, there’s a lot more to it than that, as we’ll find out.
“I couldn’t fly anymore,” says the 66-year-old who crossed time zones every week during the filming season for 14 years to appear as a judge on both Strictly Here and Dancing With. The stars in America.
“I don’t know how I survived this schedule. It’s a miracle to be honest.’
Strictly Come Dancing judge Bruno Tonioli, 66, (pictured), is leaving Strictly Come Dancing. The choreographer said he could no longer cross between time zones
Strictly a night out on a Saturday, Bruno says he would return home to his flat in Maida Vale around midnight and then get up early the next morning to fly to Los Angeles, with meetings as soon landed. She would work on Dancing With The Stars for a few days and then catch another flight back to London to prepare for that weekend’s Strictly.
“Then I got back on the plane to America on Sunday morning. For 11 weeks straight!’
Bruno leans back in his chair, sweeps the air with his hands and says, “I have no idea what he did to my health, don’t go there!”
He’s got a cigarette in his hand, but Bruno insists he works out and is pretty fit, looking dapper in the skinny blue jeans and navy and white striped shirt he’s wearing today. “If someone turned up like that on Strictly, I’d be like, ‘Does he look like a deckchair today?’ can i sit on you
He laughs and undoes another button so that the shirt is open almost to the navel. Bruno shows off a hairless chest and a chestnut tan from a recent holiday in Sardinia, highlighted by a gold necklace and his closely cropped hair, which has been left to grow out silvery white.
There was a moment live on Strictly when I went blank. He didn’t know where he was or what he was doing
“The schedule was crazy,” he says, giving an alarming example of the damage jet lag and exhaustion could do.
“There was a moment in the middle of a race when I went blank. I didn’t know where I was or what I was doing.”
This happened during a live Strictly show and it could have been a disaster. “It only lasted a second, then I saw the audience looking at me and it all came back to me.”
So how did he cope for so long? “The jet-lag is pretty tough, but the shows give you an adrenaline rush.
‘You just have to train. You don’t go out, you don’t see anyone. You live like a monk. He grimaces at the memory. ‘Basically, you have no life’.
Bruno with American judges Len Goodman and Carrie Ann Inaba on Dancing with the Stars in the USA. He struggled with the jet between the United Kingdom and the United States
Then he had to act at both ends of the trip. ‘I’m playing a character. My accent gets stronger, facial expressions and body movements get bigger.”
THE DAY MADE MICHAEL BOLTON CRY
Michael Bolton with dance partner Chelsie Hightower
Working in America means you have to watch what you say, which can be tricky when you’re criticizing famous dancers. “I made Michael Bolton cry,” Bruno recalls.
– He still doesn’t speak to me. The singer apologized after Bruno called his dance at Hound Dog the worst game he’d seen in 11 seasons.
“He’s upset, but it’s just a joke. It’s just showbiz.’
He also upset country singer Billy Ray Cyrus in 2007 when he called his foxtrot a “c***” and said it looked like “a bear lost in a swamp” and “deliciously awful.” Bruno laughs. “I bet worse has happened,” he says.
“It was the daughter who was the most upset. I said, ‘Listen honey, I’m doing my job. We’re having a laugh here.'” The daughter, of course, is superstar Miley Cyrus.
“But you have to be careful,” says Bruno. “I mean, the world changes, but you still have to give artists the ability to express themselves.
‘You need creativity. And sometimes creativity can annoy people. We’re getting a little too tense.’
Are there things he’s said on Strictly in the past that he wouldn’t say now? “I remember getting in trouble at the BBC because someone was dancing to a song from The Sound Of Music and I said,
”The hills are alive with the sound of bull****.” It was fun, but dear, they almost passed out in the control box!
He compares it to Steve Coogan playing Alan Partridge, an exaggeration of a part of himself. “You have to toughen up and keep it up for two hours. That’s really hard when you have all the added stress of travel.
Bruno has been a hit since Strictly started in 2004. The unpredictable Italian with a twinkle in his eye burst out of his seat with charming enthusiasm and told the formidable Ann Widdecombe that he danced like “a Dalek in drag”.
Or fainting at the double-step of pop star Jay McGuiness, declaring him the ‘bull’s b******’. The producers said it, but the audience laughed.
He was just being Bruno. We loved it. So did viewers in the US when she started Dancing With The Stars, because along with the laughs, she knows her stuff.
Bruno was born in northern Italy to parents who had no idea how to deal with his homosexuality or his dreams of being a dancer, but he was plucked from obscurity one night in Milan in the 1970s. The star of a French dance company came out, and the director saw Bruno who looked so much like the protagonist that he could have been his double.
did he know how to dance Of course, said the young self-taught performer, who learned the moves in a week and later recalled, “It was like a Cinderella story.”
Bruno danced in Paris and then London, where he appeared in an Elton John music video and films such as Absolute Beginners. He became a choreographer and worked with David Bowie and Tina Turner before Strictly producers came calling.
“It absolutely changed my life, it was like being born again,” he says. “I was a successful choreographer, but it was like going back to basics as a performer. I loved it.
Working on both sides of the Atlantic was possible until Covid, when Bruno stayed in his £2.5m pad in Los Angeles, a luxury lock-up. “People exaggerate,” he laughs. “It’s a nice house, but it’s not like my friend Simon Cowell’s, with Rolls-Royces in the car.”
The BBC asked him to appear on Strictly via video link in that first season of Covid, but it didn’t really work out. Covid restrictions meant that Bruno was temporarily replaced for the 2021 season by professional dancer and show favorite Anton Du Beke, who turned out to be a brilliant judge, not as prone to falling off his chair as Bruno, but full of of dry humor and empathy. for the dancers.
“She did a really good job of making it her own. They got the biggest viewing figures. Huge. And I adored Rose.
The competition was won by deaf actor Rose Ayling-Ellis after she and her partner Giovanni Pernice turned off the music to show what it was like for her. Anton was doing so well, so did Bruno feel any kind of jealousy or did he realize he was never going to get his seat back?
“You don’t think like that,” he says. “He’s like James Bond, isn’t he?” You’ve got Sean Connery and Daniel Craig, but they’re both still Bond.
OK, but I’d still like to know if the BBC looked at Anton’s success and said, “Sorry Bruno, we don’t need you anymore.” He frowns. ‘No, we talked. It was a very civilized conversation.
Strictly Come Dancing would continue late into the night on a Saturday, with Bruno (pictured) saying he would return home to his Maida Vale flat around midnight and then get up early the next day to fly to Los Angeles .
“We looked at whether there was a way to make both shows work like before and it was a mutual decision. They said, ‘It’s really not feasible.’ And I said, ‘It really isn’t.’
Travel chaos reigns these days. There are far fewer flights than there used to be, more delays and cancellations, not to mention strikes, luggage problems and queues at border control.
“It used to be hard work, but now you could be hysterical. I wouldn’t want to let anyone down.
‘Can you imagine? I’m stuck at Heathrow, they’re waiting for me in America,” he says. “Let’s say I’m a day late, you never know how things are these days.
“No production company could take that risk. That’s why they make sure you show up.”
Insurers wouldn’t like me playing Russian roulette with chaotic international travel. And now it has new bosses, Dancing With The Stars has moved to a new platform, where it will be broadcast live.
Bruno danced his way to Paris and then London, where he appeared in an Elton John music video (pictured) and in films such as Absolute Beginners.
“Disney+ is a big business. They’re both huge, Disney and the BBC. They’re both very expensive shows.
“You can’t risk one of your players being absent. Let’s say you’re shooting a movie and Hugh Jackman cost millions to hire and you say, ‘Well, he may or may not appear.’ They were like, ‘What?’
I doubt he paid as much as Hugh, but presumably more than the £250,000 a season Bruno reportedly earned at the BBC? “I don’t know how much I make,” he says, shockingly, something only the rich can say.
‘I’m not complaining. I’m a performer, not a businessman.’
If it was a choice, why not choose this country? “I’m under contract in America until 2024. I don’t have a long-term contract like that with the BBC.”
Oh, so he’s tied to Dancing With The Stars and has to make sure he’ll appear, but Strictly only hires season after season and he’s found a great replacement. “I felt, actually, that it would be a bit bad if I came back.
Anton did a very good job as a judge, he made it his own…