‘She’s pushed through a lot’ Strictly's Oti Mabuse admits sister Motsi is her role model
express.co.ukOti Mabuse considered her sister Motsi Mabuse one of her biggest inspirations after the latter left South Africa in the 1990s to embark on a career as a ballroom dancer in Germany.The 31-year-old has since created a successful career of her own, having starred on shows such as Strictly Come Dancing and German’s equivalent, Let’s Dance.She’s appeared as a dance captain on The Greatest Dancer, became a panellist on The Masked Singer last year, and most recently signed on to become a judge on ITV’s Dancing on Ice.But all of these achievements wouldn’t have been possible had it not been for Motsi who showed her sister that nothing was out of reach so long as you worked hard for it.In her column for Radio Times, Oti gushed about her sibling, saying: “She was the first black girl to go overseas and become a German champion.“Leaving South Africa in the 90s for Germany to be a Latin and Ballroom dancer was unheard of.
And for a long time, she was the only black girl who did it."Growing up, Motsi was someone I looked up to: I didn’t have a lot of examples of women who looked like me, doing what I wanted to do."Motsi was just 18 years old when she moved to Germany.And while moving to Europe was a huge opportunity for the 40-year-old to follow her dreams and pursue a professional career in dancing, she endured plenty of criticism upon her relocation.Back in September, Motsi explained the endless racism she experienced during this time of her life, recalling how people would tell her she would never make it because “black people are lazy”.The Strictly judge, already determined to take Germany by storm, said that the comment made her work so much harder to prove the naysayers wrong.Speaking about how she was subjected to.
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