Daniel O’ Donnell has admitted he will miss the support of his beloved mum on the upcoming Strictly Come Dancing competition.
The 53-year-old singer was last week revealed as the eighth celebrity to compete in the show and can’t wait to show off his moves, but he says he’s sad his mum Julia isn’t around to cheer him on.
“My mother would have loved it. She was very supportive and got great fun out of everything I did, as she did with everyone else in the family,” he said.
She passed away last year at the age of 94 and Daniel said that his Strictly experience will not be the same without his number one fan in the crowd cheering him on.
“If I didn’t win and she was still around, she’d say, ‘oh you were robbed’, so I’ll miss her feedback,” he commented.
“If it was any other year I couldn’t have done it because I always perform a residency in Branson, Missouri, at that time of year, so maybe my mother had a hand in it,” he told The Herald.
Although he recently proved he can strut his stuff when he performed at the 2015 Rose of Tralee, the Danny Boy singer will have to put in the hard yards if he wants to make the cut on the gig with the BBC show.
“They insist you do at least 12 hours training a week, and that’s over four days because the fifth and sixth are rehearsals and then the show,” he said
Meanwhile, Daniel has been keeping a close eye on the other Strictly contenders, “Several people have told me that Peter Andre has a six-pack,” Daniel said. “I just have a one-pack at the moment, so I’ll have to work on that.”
