STRICTLY Come Dancing judge Motsi Mabuse’s full name is Motshegetsi Mabuse.
Her sister – professional dancer and show winner Oti, 31, – has a longer name too and is called Otlile.
The name Motshegetsi is said to mean “supporter” in the Bantu language of the Tswana people, which is spoken in South Africa.
Motsi, 40, grew up under apartheid in a township in South Africa which saw her and her sisters forced to take a community minibus to their convent school because they were banned from “white” public transport.
She previously said that during her formative years she was treated as though she was worth “nothing” in her home country, enduring segregation and racism.
But then she was introduced to dance, which helped her through the painful times of growing up under apartheid.
She said: “I’m so thankful for the world of dance because if I had grown up with just the South African bitterness of the very hard childhood we had, and I’d never experienced the love of the dance world, then I probably would have been a very sad person.
“The world of dance is where I felt accepted as a human being.”
However, she said her life changed when she moved from South Africa to Germany to pursue her career at the age of 18.
She said: “You have to actually get there, to the fact that people really do think you’re great.
“To be able to hear people say, ‘We love you’, and swallow that and say, ‘Oh wow, thank you’, when as a child you were taught – through to your bitter bones – that you were nothing. It’s something you have to get over.”
Motsi and Oti have returned to Strictly for the show’s nineteenth series.
