EXCLUSIVE: Strictly star Balvinder REVEALS the truth behind his off-screen BREAKDOWN
She bounced back from her first Strictly dance off with a blistering Paso Doble that earned her an impressive 28 points from the judges.
But EastEnders star Balvinder Sopal has told how she felt “crushed” with rejection after then finding herself in the bottom two for the second week running.
“I’ve had meltdowns and things,” she says, admitting it’s been hard to stay positive. “And I’m like, ‘holy hell. I’ve been lying about being optimistic’. I beat myself up and I’m sometimes a little bit derogatory but there’s no need to be that way. When you get on that floor, there is a fear of judgment and rejection. But what I have to remember is that I’ve put myself there.”
Despite getting solid scores for each of her last two dances, Balvinder hasn’t picked up enough votes from viewers at home to avoid being in the dreaded dance off. Both times she’s been saved by the judges, with Ross King and then Chris Robshaw sent packing instead. But remembering the moment she found out the bad news for a second time, Balvinder tells the Mirror: “My heart just sank, I thought we’d done enough to come back from the week previous when we were, again, in the bottom two. I was crushed.”
Last Saturday’s final result was a close run thing, and viewers know that if head judge Shirley Ballas still had the casting vote, Balvinder would be a goner. Luckily for her, that duty fell to Craig Revel Horwood.“I’m so grateful to Craig and he’s one of the scariest judges, I think,” Balvinder says. “He saved us and I can’t thank him enough.”
But the whole bruising experience means the soap star, 46, fears she’s proving far less popular in real life than as her Albert Square alter ego, Suki Panesar. “Maybe they thought we were safe and so they didn’t vote for us,” she reasons. “But every time Suki and [her Walford wife] Eve come on screen, my social media feeds go mad, message after message after message. So I’m like, ‘OK, what’s going on here? Surely you want to be supporting Suki?’ Maybe everybody doesn’t like Bal? I mean, who knows? But one thing is for sure, I don’t want to be in the dance off again.”
Confessing that the “feeling of insecurity” is hard to shake, she and her Aussie pro Julian Caillon, who is in his first year on the series, are determined to throw everything into this week’s performance. “We’ve just got to nail our dance this week and make sure that we impress as much as we can. I’m trying not to carry any of the baggage of Saturday into this weekend.”
For icons week, Balvinder will take on the role of pop queen Beyonce as she and Jules perform a quickstep – not to Survivor, as some might have thought, but to the country number Texas Hold ‘Em. Yet again the training has been hard and she’s found herself on a rollercoaster of emotions. “We’ve got such a short space of time to learn such intense dance routines, there is a part of me that goes, ‘oh gosh, I don’t know if I can do this’,” she confesses. “And Jules hasn’t let me off this week. He’s been tough, but I think I need that.”
One of the problems has been finding enough confidence to unleash her seductive side. “I’m trying to find sexy Bal,” she says. “It’s interesting because it’s really exposing trying to find those parts of you in such a short space of time. If we were doing a theatre show, I’d have four weeks to channel sex appeal and passion – to get it in four days is tough.”
That said, Balvinder’s hoping that her acting skills will help her to be convincing as one of America’s biggest stars. Unsurprisingly, she’s nervous. “They are pretty big boots to fill, right?” she laughs. “But how exciting that I get to burst out onto the stage as Beyonce. Her music brings people together, it transcends. So that’s the vision for this weekend, to bring people with us, to get them to vote.”
Like Balvinder, Julian is desperately hoping that this week’s show will return a different outcome that pushes them straight through to week six. He thinks they have suffered from being placed in the middle of the leaderboard. “They say the middle of the pack is the worst place to end up. But I was so calm because I just had this feeling, I couldn’t describe it to you,” he explains. “When the elimination started, I was telling Bal, if we’re not in the first group of names that’s called out, then I think we’re in the bottom two. But it is what it is. It’s got to be two couples every week. You learn the lessons from it and you move on.”
The actress was motivated to sign up for the series after losing her mother, Nirma, last year. “This is her dream actually. I think she would have been really proud,” she says. “I’m holding mum’s legacy up – 2025 is my ‘yes’ year. My mum was a real fan of the show. We used to watch it together. She was so strong and always put her best foot forward. I need to step into her energy.”
Stepping anywhere is proving tricky though, because two months of intensive training has taken its toll on her body. “My feet are dead,” she laughs. “I couldn’t wear shoes today, I had to come in my sliders because they wouldn’t fit into my trainers.”
To get through, she’s taking advantage of every bit of help she can get from Strictly’s behind-the-scenes machine. “I’ve got Epsom salts to help and I’m taking magnesium tablets. And I’ve got a foot spa plus massages, physio, everything really is on the table to get me through this!”
On the family front, she is receiving strong support from her nearest and dearest who want her to “soak up” the experience she has dreamed of having for many years. “I spoke to my sister about the dance off and she said, ‘You just gotta back yourself, Bal. You know you can do it. You want to do it. You go out there, you take the feedback, you don’t show an attitude, you don’t have ego, you work bloody hard and you get it done.’
“And I’m like, yeah, cool. She’s none of this wishy-washy stuff – ‘just go out there and get it right. You’ve got no other choice’. And that’s what I’m going to do.”
