Strictly star Shirley Ballas has opened up about her split from toyboy boyfriend Danny Taylor – after he ‘went missing’ on the night of her 64th birthday.

The Strictly Come Dancing head judge, back on screens in three weeks with the new series of the BBC dance show, split from Danny in September 2024. The pair had met while doing panto in 2018 and struck up a romance.

She quickly fell head-over-heels for the 51 year old. She also said yes when he got down on one knee and popped the question. However, Shirley has now revealed that she ignored “red flags” in their romance. And, even though it made her feel “very sad”, she ultimately decided “this can’t go on”.

Shirley Ballas split from boyfriend Danny Taylor after he ‘went missing’ on her birthday (Credit: Splash News)

Shirley split from Danny ‘not just for her sake but for her mum too’

In excerpts of her upcoming autobiography, Best Foot Forward, serialised in the Mirror, Shirley has revealed what really caused the couple to split.

Shirley claimed that she was in bed with her 87-year-old mum Audrey at 9pm on the day of her 64th birthday when a relative of Danny’s sent her a message telling that he’d gone missing. His phone was off, his family were worried about him and the police were also concerned.

Shirley said she was engulfed with fear as she got flashbacks to when her brother, David, took his own life in 2003, aged 44. She said that for her and her mum, “all those memories came flooding back – it triggered all these emotions”.

By 2am, Danny had opened her WhatsApp messages. And he reappeared the next day and carried on as if nothing had happened, Shirley claimed. It was then that she realised she had to end things.

“I will never forget that day until the day I die. I remember looking across in the middle of the night and I saw my mother was just so upset, reliving all of her trauma. I just thought, this can’t go on. Not just for my sake, but my mum too,” she writes in the book.

The pair met while working together on panto in 2018 (Credit: Splash News)

Shirley Ballas on ‘red flags’ in her relationship with boyfriend Danny

Shirley added: “There was no question about how much I loved that man. And he came into my life at a point when I really, really needed it and he was such a caring person. But along the line, there were red flags that I chose to ignore. It just got to a point where the relationship was becoming too difficult for me in many ways.”

The Strictly star said that, after the night, communication between them has been sparse. And they haven’t seen each other face-to-face, so she hasn’t got the much-needed closure she longs for.

“I was getting more and more worried about things that were going on in his life, and I already have a lot of things to worry about. I just needed some peace. We still haven’t seen each other face to face since that night, which I’ve asked for many times. I’m a person who needs closure, and it’s just never closed,” she writes.

Going forward, Shirley has ruled out another relationship – especially with a younger man. And, even though they’re no longer an item, Shirley admitted that it “doesn’t mean I didn’t adore him”.

“I just didn’t really have a choice.”