Anton Du Beke's heartache behind the scenes from wife's health to horrific family trauma

Anton Du Beke, the ever-smiling face of Strictly Come Dancing, has been gracing our screens for over two decades. Initially as a professional dancer and since 2012, as one of the judges on the popular BBC show.

However, behind that constant smile lies a history of personal trauma, including an alcoholic parent and a heart-wrenching struggle to start a family with his wife.

Despite this, Anton, who holds the record as Strictly's longest-serving professional dancer, is adamant that his drive to succeed isn't rooted in his challenging past.

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Speaking about his father Antal's severe alcoholism, Anton firmly stated: "I never did anything I did because of him. My motivation to do what I did was not because of that. I hate 'Woe is me'."

In a candid chat with The Times, he opened up about his upbringing in Sevenoaks, Kent, revealing: 'My family lived in a council house and money was tight. A lot of money got wasted, what with my father's drinking."

During an appearance on ITV's Life Stories with Kate Garraway, Anton shared a chilling account of how his father's drinking led to violent incidents: "I got stabbed in the leg and in the stomach because of a fight on Boxing Day and it was an idiotic situation. I remember walking out of the house to walk up to the hospital holding my leg and a police car drove past and I waved them down and I said 'He's in there with a knife'."

The star, who has been nicknamed 'The King of Ballroom' thanks to his talents, spent several days in hospital following the incident, remembering that his sole worry at the time was "getting back into the studio and dancing and the embarrassment of it."

Following his parents' separation, the Strictly star lost all contact with his father, who passed away in 2001. Anton chose not to attend the funeral, explaining: "Everything was about moving forwards.

""I felt sorry for my mum, this was her husband, she's working two jobs and he chose to drink and be violent. It's just life and you carry on."

Years later, after a six-year courtship, Anton wed businesswoman Hannah Summers in 2017. For numerous years the pair attempted to conceive without success, leading to the heartbreaking revelation that Hannah had been battling endometriosis, which affected her capacity to fall pregnant naturally."

"Before I met my wife, I had never heard of endometriosis," Anton confessed. "It potentially stops women from having children. It's still not talked about enough.

"My wife seemed like a person naturally aligned to motherhood, yet a freak of nature had decreed that she wouldn't be able to get pregnant. That always seemed mightily unfair to me. Now, she is the most incredible mother."

That challenging period had a joyful conclusion, however, with the pair eventually welcoming twins, George and Henrietta, through IVF in 2017.

Anton confessed that he may not have been prepared for fatherhood earlier in his life: "My wife used to call me 'an island of an individual'," he remembered.

"My life used to be about me. I was driven to do what I wanted to do, better. But when I had children, it changed from focusing on me to being focused on us.

"If you can't take on the responsibility, you shouldn't have children in the first place. It would have been the wrong time for me to have children when I was younger."

Anton Du Beke is appearing on the Celebrity Special of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? tonight on ITV1 from 9pm.