He’s looking forward to taking on a new challenge and embracing his 60s, admitting his 50s were “horrendous” following a cancer battle, Covid-19, a heart attack and quadruple bypass
Brian Kennedy never thought he would be dancing on live television after having to learn how to walk again on two separate occasions.
The legendary singer is one of 12 celebrities competing to lift the glitterball trophy on this year’s Dancing With The Stars on RTE and is partnered up with new pro dancer James Cutler.
Labelling his 50s as a “horrendous” decade having battled rectal cancer, Covid-19 and a heart attack which resulted in him undergoing a quadruple bypass, Brian is ready to embrace his 60s by living life to the fullest.
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The Belfast native was approached to do Dancing With The Stars before, but the timing wasn’t right due to health setbacks. But now, he is fit and ready to take on the challenge.
“I thought about it long and hard. Of course, they ask you all those health questions in terms of the contracts,” Brian told RSVP Live.
“So I went to my cardiologist and had a stress test. They attach all of these monitors to you and you’re put on a treadmill and away you go.
“Eventually the nurse said I could stop, and I passed it with flying colours.
“The morning after the first show I saw St James’ Cardiology calling me on the phone and I thought someone was going to tell me off. But it was actually my surgeon and she said, ‘Congratulations, I couldn’t believe my eyes’.
“She was actually the one who stopped my heart, took it out of my body, reconnected it up with new veins for the quadruple bypass. She said, ‘I don’t know if you remember it, but you had a massive heart attack’.
“When I had my first proper MRI in a while last year she said to me I had made a complete and full recovery.
“She said to keep dancing, and that I’m going to be sore, of course, from doing this, but to absolutely keep going.”
Brian says his dance partner, 36-year-old James, reminds him of his younger self.
He said: “I’m heavier than I’ve ever been, I’m nearly 60, my body is like Frankenstein’s for God’s sake, I have all of these scars.
“What became apparent to me is that James really embodies my pre-cancer and pre-heart attack self, when I could just pick any jacket or pair of trousers off the shelf and put them on.
“All of that has now changed, but here I am Dancing With The Stars – the biggest programme on TV. And it’s about physical activity.
“It’s not lost on me how incredibly lucky I am, battle scars and all, to even be able to stand up straight, never mind dance.”
Brian never imagined he’d be fit enough to learn how to dance when he was in the depths of his health woes.
He continued: “I had to learn how to walk again from scratch after the nine hour surgery for cancer.
“Same with the quadruple bypass, I had to learn how to walk again after that because it was so severe on my body.
“It’s extraordinary, isn’t it? [Learning how to dance] never occurred to me because when you are in a situation where your body cannot remember how to walk properly, it can’t support you.
“I was severely underweight and malnourished both times. I also suffered from coronavirus>Covid, my body was terribly, terribly weak.”
Brian is a big believer in visualising his goals.
He explained: “I tried to visualise myself walking and think, ‘Okay, tomorrow I’m going to walk a bit further’.
“My treat to myself when I was lying in a hospital bed was thinking, ‘Where will I drive to?’.
“It’s the same with this dancing competition. Katherine Lynch is the only person I socially know who had done this before and I saw the transformation with her.
“I think it’s going to be so interesting to see what happens with me, because our bodies all respond differently.
“And so far, so good. As I said I have the scars, and I’ve a hernia that won’t go away and I have to dance around that.
“The brilliant thing about James is that he did his homework on my condition and tailors everything around that.”
Tonight, Brian and James will be taking on the Cha Cha Cha to Benson Boone’s Mr. Electric Blue, but they are still enjoying the high of scoring 23 points for his emotional Viennese Waltz to Piano Man by Billy Joel last week.
“It’s literally the two of us embracing each other on that dance floor and making something really beautiful,” Brian said of the performance.
“I didn’t really realise it would make me so emotional until we started doing it. I nearly burst out crying.
“I’ve had such a lot of grief in a way, and a lot of things happen to my body, but in the end my body has been so good to me, because it has let me recover.
“That all hit me at once. I’m making peace with my past.
“My 50s were horrendous but I can’t wait to embrace my 60s and think, ‘Aren’t I a lucky duck?’”
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