Oti Mabuse reveals 'toxic' relationship with her figure and no longer having a 'dancer's body' after leaving Strictly as she teases return to the show
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Oti Mabuse has opened up about having a 'toxic' relationship with her body image after spending her career as a professional dancer.
The former Strictly star, 34, who quit the show in 2022 after seven years, admitted it has been a 'continuing journey' to rebuild a healthy relationship with body.
Oti said part of the journey is accepting that she no longer has a dancer's body after going through 'ups and downs' and welcoming her baby daughter.
Speaking to Prima magazine, Oti discussed her body image struggles, how she has adjusted to motherhood and a possible return to Strictly Come Dancing.
Detailing her early thoughts as a child about her body, Oti said: 'Growing up, I always thought that the people who did the best (in dancing) were the thinnest, and you always felt like, "If I need to be successful, I need to look like that." And I think it's not just Latin and ballroom dancers, it's across the board.
'All dancers, we always feel like that. And so we then have this very toxic relationship with our bodies, and even when you walk into the room, and if you've lost weight, they go, "Oh my gosh, she looks so good."
'And it's like, "Wait, do I look good because I'm small, or do I just look good in general?" Words hold power over a lot of us as women. So it's trying to rebuild that relationship and it's a continuing journey.
'It will be every day, I guess, for the rest of my life, that I'll just have to work on that relationship, and hopefully by talking about it, it's going to create more of a conversation around the fact that we need to build our relationship with our bodies in a very healthy way.'
Despite her previous struggles, Oti revealed she has now found peace with her body, telling the publication: 'I'm now coming into the world as a human being who used to dance, not as a dancer. I still dance, but I'm a person first, before the dancer.
'My body has had its ups and downs; the gaining of the weight, the losing of the weight, having the baby. It's been such a rollercoaster, but I think it's normal to experience that as a woman. Yes, there are some moments where I feel, "Oh my gosh, I'm not happy with what I look like,"...
'And then I have to say to myself in the mirror "No, you are good. You are perfect. You have had a baby, you've had a human being come out of you. It's okay to not look perfect, as long as you move, as long as you're trying to be healthy.'
Oti's time on Strictly was hugely successful and she walked away a two-time champion following successive wins with Kelvin Fletcher and Bill Bailey.
Reflecting on her time on the show, she said: 'When I look back on Strictly, I think the whole seven-year journey was amazing. I still work on the show. I still do choreography, I'm still talking to the producers.
'I say that the show brought me everything, like me sitting here today, and the relationship still very much continues. There were ups, there were downs; if you can imagine being the first Black anything, anywhere, there will always be ups and downs.'
Oti confessed she is regularly asked whether she would ever return to the show and she teased that is a case of 'never say never'
She said: 'Everyone asks me [if I'd return to Strictly]. I think right now, with a daughter and everything I'm doing, I'm quite busy, and I'm happy with what I'm doing at the minute. But never say never. The doors are always open, which is really, really nice.
'AljaĹľ [Ĺ korjanec] went back and he's doing really well. I went back to choreograph with him and he's just in a different space. He's absolutely sensational. So, you never know.'
Oti is married to fellow professional dancer Marius Iepure, who she shares a little girl whose name is unknown, after giving birth in November 2023.
Elsewhere in the interview, Oti spoke about when she first moved to London and she immediately felt at ease being in an interracial couple.
She said: 'When I lived in Germany [where Oti moved to broaden her dancing horizons, appearing on the German version of Strictly], Marius and I used to come to London. The best dance school was in Croydon, and all the best couples would go there.
'I remember the first time we'd be walking the streets, and there were so many interracial couples. I would say to Marius, "There's us! There's us! Oh, there we go again!" And I was just like,
'Wow, where have I been living? Why am I not here? I just see so many multicultural couples,' and it felt like, 'I need that diversity in my life.' And when I came here, every time we took a lesson, we'd always take a walk. It just felt amazing; it felt like I belonged.'
Oti also touched on her experiences as a mother as she described it as her 'most challenging journey yet'.
She said: 'Motherhood is amazing. It's really incredible. But if I'm being brutally honest, it's also the most challenging and exhausting journey of self-discovery that you will ever be on.
'I have a one-year-old who's very expressive but doesn't speak, so when something's happening, I don't know what's going on. But she's so incredible, fun and so determined.
'She's like a little me – and it scares the life out of me, because my mum didn't know what to do with me and I moved to another continent.
'So now I'm like, "I will follow her wherever she goes. If she's going to a jungle in the Amazon, we're moving to the jungle in the Amazon." She's a very determined child and it's exhausting trying to keep up, but I love it.'
The June 2025 issue of Prima is now on sale
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