Anton Du Beke was hospitalised for three days after being stabbed by his drunk father.
Anton Du Beke has opened up about his abusive father
The 'Strictly Come Dancing' judge's father Antal used to call him "gay" because of his ballroom dancing dreams as a teenager and things "came to a head" when the abuse turned violent over a festive period when he was knifed in the stomach and leg.
Speaking to Kate Garraway on Wednesday's (02.08.23) episode of 'Life Stories', he tearfully said: “I’ve never spoken about this before in my entire life. You’ve got an alcoholic father and a situation where, if you’re in the house then there’s the drinking and you end up with the fights and stuff.
“And you’d move room to get away from all of it and he’d follow you in. And then next thing you know the violence starts.
"It came to a head one evening. I ended up in hospital for three days. I got stabbed.
“This is the first time I’ve even mentioned it.
“I’m sure my friends and family don’t even know.”
The 57-year-old star recalled waving down a police car to report his father.
He said: “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, recalled how Antal "took a turn against" her brother because of his love of dance.
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 was cleared by police over the incident and eventually divorced Anton's mother.
The dancer admitted he changed his name from Anthony Beke to distance himself from his dad.
He said: “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.”
Anton "doesn't think" about his father anymore and didn't attend his funeral when he died in 2001.
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.
“And there’s only one way to do it, which is to be the best at it.”
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