KNIFE ATTACK
Anton Du Beke reveals his drunken father stabbed him in the stomach and he was hospitalised for days
ANTON Du Beke has revealed he was once stabbed by his drunk dad during years of terror at home.
The Strictly Come Dancing judge, 57, was called gay by dad Antal because of his ballroom dancing dreams.
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One Boxing Day, teenage Anton was knifed in the stomach and leg.
With tears in his eyes, Anton recalled: “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.”
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The telly favourite has previously told how his father beat him with a belt, but opened up about the full extent of the abuse in a heartbreaking interview for Kate Garraway’s Life Stories on Wednesday on ITV.
Tearful Anton recalled how he waved down a police car as he limped to hospital after being stabbed by his father.
Pointing back to his house, he told cops: “He’s in there with a knife.”
Anton, opened up for the first time about the full extent of the abuse dished out by his boozy dad in the emotional interview with Kate.
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He told her: “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.”
He added: “It came to a head one evening. I ended up in hospital for three days.”
With his voice cracking, he went on: “I got stabbed. I’ve never said this out loud before. I got stabbed in the leg and in the stomach.
“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 has previously said his father struck him with a belt at the family home in Kent, but had remained silent on the stabbing.
He told Kate, 56: “This is the first time I’ve even mentioned it. I’m sure my friends and family don’t even know.
“I can’t really believe I’m talking to you about this. I should’ve glossed over this.”
His sister Veronica Richards said their Hungarian father Antal was dead against teenage Anton’s ballroom dance dreams.
She explained: “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.
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“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 knife attack on Anton and eventually divorced Spanish-born Ascension.
It meant by Anton’s mid-20s, life at home in Sevenoaks had improved. But the pain was enough to see him later change his name from Anthony Beke.
With his wife Hannah in the audience wiping away a tear with a tissue, glassy-eyed Anton went on: “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.” Antal died in 2001 and Anton did not attend his funeral. But he remains incredibly close to his mother and sister.
He revealed: “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.”
Anton also talked about his 20 series on Strictly. He said he turned to just one person for advice when BBC bosses offered him Bruno Tonioli’s place on the judging panel in 2021 — the late Len Goodman.
Anton went on: “They asked me to judge, so I spoke to Len of course. I didn’t speak to anyone else. I feel like Len and I shared the journey of Strictly Come Dancing together. I’d known Len for 45 years. It was immediately clear what I should do in five seconds — he said to me, ‘Be yourself and say what you see’. That’s it.”
Show bosses had partnered pro dancer Anton with a string of TV’s leading ladies from Esther Rantzen, Gillian Taylforth and Kate Garraway herself in 2007 to the less graceful Ann Widdecombe, Jacqui Smith and Judy Murray.
He reached the final only twice — with Katie Derham in 2015 and Emma Barton in 2019 — but missed out on the Glitterball trophy both times. He laughed and said of his Strictly beginnings: “I realised within ten minutes two things. One, this isn’t about me, and two, I’m going to have to be myself because we had the microphones on and cameras on at all times.
“So I never minded who I got, and if I got someone who couldn’t dance I’d just fly them in. That’s the fun.
“But I hated getting voted off, it was absolutely mortifying, gutting and really, really felt horrible because I hated not being part of the show.” Kate is returning for a second run of the talk show, which she took over in October 2021 following Piers Morgan’s departure.
Future guests include TV’s Ruby Wax and actor and comedian Omid Djalili.
Kate said: “Anton Du Beke is a character who’s larger than life — but also, as I already knew from my time dancing with him on Strictly, very private.”
She added: “He has a philosophy about his relationship with his fans that he is there to bring joy into their lives and doesn’t want to share any of his own troubles. But with me he does, and it showed a huge leap of trust on his part, because many of the things we talked about he hadn’t even really talked about even with his close family.
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“I felt so honoured to be able to help him to share it.”
- Kate Garraway’s Life Stories airs Wednesday on ITV1 at 9pm.
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ANTON'S MANY STEPS TO DANCING STARDOM
By Felicity Cross
THE star was born Anthony Beke to a Spanish mother and Hungarian father.
He grew up in Sevenoaks, Kent, and began dancing at the age of ten after becoming entranced when helping collect sister Veronica from class.
Anton dropped out of school with no qualifications and took any job he could to earn a living and pay for dance lessons.
He worked as an interior designer, bed salesman, baker, financial adviser and painter and decorator while pursuing his ballroom dance dreams.
He finally made his mark in competitive dance when he partnered with Erin Boag in 1997 and turned pro in 2002.
Strictly Come Dancing came calling before the pair were able to win the World Championships and in 2004 they appeared on the first series.
They thought there was no chance the show would be recommissioned and planned to return to the circuit and continue their quest to win.
But the show swiftly became a huge success and both swapped the ballroom for the BBC dancefloor. Erin danced for ten more series, while Anton has never left.
In 2020 he covered as judge for Motsi Mabuse when she was sick, and was handed a permanent seat on the panel when Bruno Tonioli quit in 2021.
Pictured below in a Christmas special, he won Judge of the Year at the National Television Awards in 2022.
Anton wed marketing executive Hannah in 2017. In the same year they welcomed their twins, daughter Henrietta and son George. At the time Anton was 50 and Hannah was 41.
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