Strictly Come Dancing’s Anton Du Beke has revealed how he spent three days in hospital after he was stabbed in the stomach and the leg by his father on Boxing Day as a child while he was living at the family home in Kent.
In a frank and tearful admission on Kate Garraway’s Life Stories, Du Beke said the revelations will likely come as a shock to his friends and family as it is the first time he has spoken about the childhood incident.
Born to a Spanish mother and Hungarian father, the Strictly judge lived on a council estate in Sevenoaks, and discovered his flair for dancing after picking his sister up from the local studio. Although his mother encouraged his new hobby, his father, Antal, ‘took a turn’ against Du Beke as alcoholism gripped him.
Du Beke, 57, told the ITV show: ‘The alcoholism and the violence…(it was) towards me, because I was a boy, a young man I suppose.
‘… You’ve got an alcoholic father and a situation where if you’re in the house (he’s) drinking then you end up with the fights and stuff. You’d move room to get away from all of it and then he follows you in and the next thing you know the violence starts and then it came to a head one evening, I ended up in hospital for three days.’
Struggling to hold back tears, he said: ‘I got stabbed, I’ve never said this out loud before.’
Horrifying: Anton Du Beke has revealed he was stabbed by his father Antal as he detailed horrific abuse from his childhood
Abuse: The Strictly Come Dancing star, 57, who previously told how his father beat him with a belt, admitted he had never told anyone about the terrifying incident
Anton recalled how he waved down a police car as he limped to hospital after his father attacked him.
He added: ‘I remember walking out of the house to walk up to the hospital, holding my leg, and a police car drove past and I waved him down and I said, ‘He’s in there with a knife’.’
Anton’s sister Veronica Richards also appeared on the show and told how Antal was againt his son’s dreams of becoming a dancer.
She said: ‘He used to call Anton gay and he took a turn against him. My dad’s drinking affected his mood – he was mean, he wasn’t a nice person when he was drunk.
‘My dad was drinking his money down the toilet, so what Mum did was work nights in a nursing home. So she wasn’t there to protect us.’
Antal, who was from Hungary, was cleared by police over the knife attack and later divorced Anton’s mother, Spanish-born Ascension. Anton eventually moved out of the family home and changed his name from Anthony Beke to Anton Du Beke.
Interview: Speaking on Kate Garraway’s Life Stories, Anton said: ‘It came to a head one evening. I ended up in hospital for three days. I got stabbed in the leg and the stomach’
Family: Anton’s sister Veronica Richards also appeared on the show and told how Antal was against his son’s dreams of becoming a dancer
He explained: ‘I wanted a new start and a new beginning and I wanted to leave what went before behind and then move on.
‘I just wanted to be me. I started with Anton Du Beke and I went from there really.’
Antal died in 2001 and Anton chose not to attend his funeral, however the star remains close with his mother and sister.
He said: ‘I don’t think about him. I never give him a second thought. It does not influence me at all. I hate the thought that anything like that defines you. I hate ‘Woe is me’. My motivation to do what I did wasn’t because of that, it’s because I wanted to do it.
Change: Anton eventually moved out of the family home and changed his name from Anthony Beke to Anton Du Beke
Family: Anton is nowmarried to his wife Hannah who he shares twins George and Henrietta, six
‘And there’s only one way to do it, which is to be the best at it.’
Elsewhere during the interview, Anton discussed his 20-year tenure on Strictly Come Dancing.
He joined the judging panel for the 2021 series and told how Len Goodman was the only person he went to for advice on the new role.
He said: ‘They asked me to judge, so I spoke to Len of course. I didn’t speak to anyone else. I feel like Len and I shared the journey of Strictly Come Dancing together.
‘I’d known Len for 45 years. It was immediately clear what I should do in five seconds — he said to me, ‘Be yourself and say what you see’. That’s it.’
Show: Anton joined the Strictly Come Dancing judging panel for the 2021 series and told how Len Goodman was the only person he went to for advice on the new role
Despite being on the show for so long, Anton only reached the final twice, with Katie Derham in 2015 and Emma Barton in 2019 but failed to win each time.
Speaking about his track record, he said: ‘I realised within ten minutes two things. One, this isn’t about me, and two, I’m going to have to be myself because we had the microphones on and cameras on at all times.
‘So I never minded who I got, and if I got someone who couldn’t dance I’d just fly them in. That’s the fun.
‘But I hated getting voted off, it was absolutely mortifying, gutting and really, really felt horrible because I hated not being part of the show.’
Kate Garraway’s Life Stories airs Wednesday on ITV1 at 9pm.
#Strictly #star #Anton #Beke #holds #tears #reveals #stabbed #alcoholic #father #Boxing #Day #spent #days #hospital #shock #attack #opens #childhood #abuse #time
