Oti Mabuse says Loose Women taught her she 'could just fail'
Oti Mabuse claimed on Loose Women that its panellists taught her to be comfortable with failure.
The two-time Strictly Come Dancing champion, who worked as a ballroom pro for seven years, was speaking in an official panellist capacity for the very first time on Wednesday, 9 April's edition of the ITV chatshow.
According to Mabuse, she once felt so inspired by the anecdotes from a Loose Women live tour that she decided to make a career change.
Reflecting on her surprise Strictly exit back in 2022, the 34-year-old told host Ruth Langsford: "It is the most wonderful show. I left South Africa and then Germany to be on Strictly and I'm still very close with producers and the dancers, but for me it was time to move on.
"I did want to explore different things, I wanted to have a family," added Mabuse, whose sister Motsi Mabuse is on the Strictly judging panel.
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"I remember I was actually going to see this Loose Women tour and you were all talking about many stories and many experiences, and I was just like, I've never done anything with my life but dance.
"I'd never travelled, I'd never met different types of people, I didn't have life experience. I was like, 'I can do this show which is amazing and do the same thing again for 20 years and still be happy - I wasn't unhappy - or I could just fail and fail knowing that I'm gaining life experience,'" she further explained.
Since leaving the BBC competition, Mabuse has appeared on The Wheel, Saturday Night Takeaway, The Great Celebrity Bake Off for Stand Up To Cancer, I'm a Celebrity, The Masked Dancer, and Dancing on Ice.
In an All Change podcast interview, Mabuse spoke of the "dark days" that contributed to quitting Strictly.
"Luckily my husband has been an amazing person who has seen the dark days, the days where I'm in the shower crying with my clothes on because it's so hard and it's so overwhelming," she shared.
"He's seen me not eat, he's seen me overeat, he's seen me struggle with not being able to get the best out of someone. He's seen me having to deal with interesting personalities. So, he's the person that's seen the behind-the-scenes at the point where I'd got to where I was like, 'I think I'm finished.'
"He was like, 'Yeah I think there's this new thing that's got a fire in your stomach. When you're hosting or talking to people you're a completely different person.'"
Loose Women airs weekdays on ITV1 and ITVX.
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