Oti Mabuse

“My sister loves to play Christmas music - especially Mariah Carey's 'All I Want for Christmas Is You' - that's definitely the best to dance to.”

“In the rest of Europe, dance is seen as a sport and in the UK it's seen as an art. And art isn't subsidised in the same way sport is.”

“In London, I live with one of the other 'Strictly' dancers, Amy Dowden. She got me a chocolate advent calendar and I had no idea what it was. I'd never seen one before!”

“The first dance we did for 'Ain't Misbehavin' was five minutes and I was like, 'What? Five minutes!'”

“My first passion was to create for young girls the idea that you have to be brave and courageous, it's not easy taking big steps and saying, 'I'm going to be a professional dancer'.”

“I've made storylines through dance to complement the music. It's all about enhancing the singing and acting. It's been an amazing learning curve for me.”

“When you are different, that can lead to judges not marking you right because they think you look 'odd' - and that's in any competition.”

“If something doesn't go your way, then look for another way. If something's broken, fix it.”

“I'm smiling every single day because every opportunity I've been given feels like a baby in Disneyland, I'm constantly hoping to move on to the next job.”

“I know first-hand what it's like to be judged and to have someone criticise your creativity, your hard work and your art.”

“I'm determined to not let my skin colour or the fact that I come from Africa be a hindrance.”

“I'm obsessed with 'Wicked', and I'd love to play Nala in 'The Lion King'. Some of the songs from 'The Lion King' are performed in my native tongue, so when the cast performed an extract from the show in 'Strictly' in the language I grew up with, it made me cry.”

“With TV presenting, I speak a lot anyway!”

“I can make a beginner, anyone with no dance experience, look amazing if we put in the hours.”

“The goal was for me to become a civil engineer. But one day I really felt that it was important for me to do what I really loved. I was really good at engineering, but I didn't have a passion for it, so going to work was something I had to do, not something that I really wanted to do.”

“I wouldn't do anything I don't enjoy.”

“Although I won many titles on the competition circuit, my first professional audition was in 2015 for the popular German version of 'Strictly Come Dancing', called 'Let's Dance'.”

“I had been dancing in competitions in South Africa since the age of four, before going on to compete internationally.”

“Off the show, I still wear my £5 leggings.”

“I like to be so good, that no-one can have anything to say about me; my dancing speaks for itself.”