A family bereavement has left Strictly Come Dancing winner Dianne Buswell heartbroken, as she finds it 'tough' consoling relatives back in Australia
Strictly Come Dancing star Dianne Buswell moved to the UK in 2017 to become one of the popular BBC show's team of professional dance partners. But that has meant that she spends a long time away from her family in Western Australia.
She felt that separation most keenly this week, with the sad passing of her grandfather at the grand old age of 99. "He only celebrated his 99th birthday two weeks ago," Dianne told fellow Strictly champ Chris McCausland on their Winning Isn't Everything podcast. "I don't I don't think he wanted to reach 100."
She added that her grandpa, who she called Buzz, was very proud of her emotional Strictly win, telling Chris: "He called you the blind fellow, he couldn't believe that I taught the blind fella how to dance."
Dianne added that after winning the Glitterball Trophy, she went back to Australia to visit her family and watched recordings of some of the shows with her beloved grandpa. She continued: "We watched some of the dances together. He got very emotional about it. He loved it. And before I left, he said to me, 'You know, I'm pretty much done'."
Everyone in the family thought Buzz would reach 100, but he faded away quite suddenly after his 99th birthday. "He just began to get really tired and they put like a little oxygen mask on him," Dianne continued.
"He was still in his nursing home. So he didn't go to hospital or anything, but he was getting weaker by the day. But he called me a couple of days ago and he was still quite conscious.
"And that was the last time, because my dad told me this morning that, he sadly passed away at about ten something this morning in Australian time. which is really sad, but he's now with his wife, Mary, who passed away from Alzheimer's."
"He loved her so, so much," Diane added. "They were inseparable. He did everything for her. They used to go traveling together. She was a surf life saver, he was a bike rider. They were a very fit and very active couple. So I'm sure he would be up there with her now having a little dance."
Dancing is very much a family affair for Dianne. She and her brother Andrew were Western Australian Open Adult New Vogue champions for 2008 and 2010 before she went on to appear on Aussie TV's So You Think You Can Dance – a spinoff of the US show of the same name presented by Cat Deeley.
Dianne went on to appear on the Australian version of Strictly, Dancing with the Stars, before making the fateful move to the UK that saw her meeting now-partner Joe Sugg in the 2018 series.
She revealed in the podcast that she had been missing her family back in Australia, and had every started making plans to bring her parents over for a surprise holiday, but she's now glad she didn't.
"Something in my head was telling me 'don't book it just yet.' So I kept putting it off...I had this weird feeling
"And then last week when my dad was saying 'Pops is not really in a great way' And I thought 'there was my reason.'" She added that she found it hard to talk to her dad when he called with the sad news, admitting: "I don't know really how to act or what to do in situations like this. I feel like I'm just trying to console my dad over phone, but I didn't really know what to say or do. It's really tough."
