week for their rock-inspired performance to Slade’s Cum On Feel The Noize.
Dancing On Ice pro Vanessa Bauer: Growing up on welfare, I was laughed at for not having my own skates By Lauren Taylor PA Dancing On Ice favouriteVanessa Bauer has revealed she was “laughed at” for not owning her own skates as a teenager, as she grew up on benefits and her family was “always in debt”. The professional figure skater, who is partnered with Made In Chelsea star Miles Nazaire on the current series of the ITV show, hosted by HollyWilloughby and Stephen Mulhern, said the ice rink was her “escape from the difficulties going on at home”. “We always lived off social welfare. Neither of my parents actually were employed when I was born. So that was always a big struggle, we never had [money], we were always in debt,” said the 27-year-old, originally from Berlin, Germany. “[When] I started doing figure skating shows and started earning money, that was the first time that my family actually had money in an account,” added Bauer – who is hotly tipped to make it to this year’s Dancing On Ice final, after she and Nazaire were joint top of the leader board last
Bauer’s talent was spotted by a coach when she was only four – and it was thanks to them offering to teach her for free that she was able to skate. “I was with my dad at a public ice skating session and it was a Russian coach who saw my potential. She came up to my dad and tried to convince him to get me into ice skating. He was laughing at her, basically [thinking] that’s not going to be possible. But she was a young coach and just really saw my potential, so she taught me.” But, she added:“It was really hard growing up because figure skating is such a rich sport – literally all my friends came from wealthy families. So I was always the person that was laughed at because I never had my own skates.
“We were never able to afford them. It’s a big expense for a family that is struggling to raise two children.”
In fact, Bauer didn’t have a new pair of her own until she was 18.“I auditioned for figure skating shows and still had my old pair of second-hand boots even for those shows. Even when I went to the German championships, that was never in my own boots.
“I never had a competition dress. I had one pair of leggings for four years in a row, which is absolutely crazy.”
90 | mccarthyholden.co.uk
Made with FlippingBook - PDF hosting