Strictly’s Motsi Mabuse refuses to say anything negative about sister Oti as she promises to ‘judge the celeb not the dancer’

STRICTLY judge Motsi Mabuse has revealed she won't criticise her sister Oti on the upcoming series as she's only focused on the celebrities.

In a candid chat on The One Show, Motsi insisted she would do nothing to jeopardise her sister's reputation and will swerve any negativity towards her.

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She explained: "Whatever my sister reaches, and she's so loved here, I would never want to do anything to tarnish her work.

"She's been here five years and she's done a brilliant job. So, I would never do anything like that to her.

"I'm looking at the whole big picture. This show, it's so loved... It's got so [much] positive energy. Me doing something so negative would be unfair to everyone."

"With Oti, we've spoken. We're very professional about what we do. My sister is a brilliant dancer and so are the other dancers. We all know that.

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"Literally, I'm not judging them. I'm judging the celebrity that's going to learn to dance and how he deals with it. I'm going to try to be fair."

The Sun previously revealed how the uber-competitive rival pro dancers started moaning behind the scenes about Motsi's appointment to the judging panel because they feared it could result in biased scores.

There was also anger that veteran hoofer Anton Du Beke had been overlooked for the role yet again.

A source said at the time: “It’s gone down like a lead balloon, with the pro dancers talking among themselves, saying it’s unfair and bound to cause a host of issues.

“A lot of the cast feel like they’re fighting a losing battle already. They feel Motsi will favour her sister.

However, Motsi is unfazed and told The Sun's Dan Wootton: “One of the main points everywhere in my life is fairness.

“Coming from South Africa and being treated unfairly all your life because of your skin colour, that’s been a huge point.”

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Motsi is fiercely proud of her equally successful sisters — including Phemelo, who runs a business in South Africa — and won’t let that get in the way of work.

She continued: “We have to speak about Oti doing her journey and if she gets to a point where she has a chance to win this and she feels I only want it because my sister is there, then it wouldn’t be such a big thing for her to celebrate. I wouldn’t want to take that away from her.

“I really need to be fair and she’ll get what everybody else is getting. We’re on different paths and it’s important. I don’t think anybody should be bigger than the show and it’s important that everybody is very professional.”

Besides, the pair have been in this exact position before when Motsi judged Oti on Let’s Dance, the highly successful German version of Strictly, in 2015.

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“We did go through it. The main point is that I’m not judging Oti. We’re never judging the pro dancers. They are brilliant, they are beautiful and they’ve done what they need to do to get there. But then again she’s used to me saying something about her dancing because I’ve taught her from the minute she could walk. I’ve always been by her side.”

She was offered the role without having sat alongside the remaining three judges and only told a handful of people, including Oti, 29, who she swore to secrecy.

On how she told her sister, she recalls: “It surprised us so I just gave her a call and I was like, ‘Do you know what happened?’ She was really excited. Family is very important to me so we always celebrate together.”

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