Comedian Susan Calman has revealed she was motivated to do ‘Strictly Come Dancing’ to prove to her five-year-old niece the importance of not letting her haters win.
Susan posted a string of tweets on Wednesday morning (19 September), after hitting back at one Twitter user who called her an unkind name.
She wrote: “I don’t often interact with trolls but occasionally I do. For years I thought I was fat and ugly. I’m not. And I won’t let anyone say I am.
“I have a five-year-old niece. I want her to know that no one (man or woman) should make her feel bad about how she looks. ‘Strictly’ is for her.”
Signing off, she concluded: “Anyway, I’m off to rehearse with a handsome man, preparing a beautiful dance for the biggest show on television. Suck on that haters.”
Susan is currently gearing up for her live ‘Strictly’ debut this week, having had a tearful moment during launch night when she discovered that she’d been partnered with her favourite professional dancer, Kevin Clifton.
She’d previously found herself at the centre of a debate about the absence of same-sex couples on the show, during which Susan, who married her wife last year, insisted it had been her decision to dance with a man, rather than one of the show’s female professionals.
Hitting back at her detractors, she said: “No one can say I haven’t stood up for my community.
“I think politically, there’s nothing more powerful than having an openly gay woman on the biggest show on television, whose wife’s on the front row, doing what she wants to do.”
The first of this year’s ‘Strictly’ live shows kicks off on Saturday 23 September at 6.25pm on BBC One.