'Being single is liberating'

Strictly's Shirley Ballas on being footloose and fancy-free in her 60s, and her untapped career goals with Simon Cowell

- GEMMA CALVERT

She spins telly gold as Strictly Come Dancing’s head judge, but if dance hadn't been her calling, Shirley Ballas might have landed on another prime-time Saturday-night show.

‘I would have liked to have gone onstage, been an actress and to sing a song on Britain's Got Talent in front of Simon Cowell,’ she says. ‘So if he’s out there and wants me to entertain him on a Saturday night, I'm sure I can clear his guests very early!’

This is classic Shirley. Self-deprecating, but brilliantly game, and the latter quality was proved last January, when she impressed the nation appearing as Rat on ITV1's The Masked Singer.

Since starring earlier this year in Netflix’s survival series Celebrity Bear Hunt, Shirley has fresh hunger to leap into the unknown. ‘I want to face the music and never let myself be defeated,’ she says. ‘I'd like to do SAS: Who Dares Wins or go with my bikini into the ice [on BBC1's Freeze the Fear] with Wim Hof. I like to push the bar, to do things that make other women [think], “If she’s done that, maybe I can try.”’

However, the biggest test of courage recently came not on TV, but in her own heart, following the demise of her six-year relationship with actor Danny Taylor, 52.