‘DWTS: The Next Pro’: Is Shirley Ballas in a Relationship? All About Her Love Life
Shirley Ballas has been the head judge on Strictly Come Dancing since 2017, and now, she’s taking on the same role for Dancing With the Stars: The Next Pro. Shirley and her son, Mark Ballas, will be joined by a rotating panel of guest judges each week as they try and find the next professional dancer on Dancing With the Stars.
Mark is Shirley’s only child, whom she shares with ex-husband Corky Ballas. However, that was not her only marriage. Below, Swooon rounded up everything we know about Shirley’s love life today and her relationship history.
Is Shirley Ballas in a relationship?
No, Shirley is not currently in a relationship. She split from her longtime partner, Danny Taylor, in 2024 after six years together.
Shirley and Danny met in 2018 when they were both starring in a winter production of Jack and the Beanstalk at the Liverpool Empire. They got engaged in 2021, but in 2023, Shirley called off the engagement because she realized she didn’t want to get married again.
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The relationship ended the following year after Shirley’s 64th birthday in September 2024. She said she received a phone call from one of Danny’s relatives saying that he “vanished” and nobody could get ahold of him. Because Shirley had lost her brother to suicide in 2003, this was a triggering situation for her. “All those memories came flooding back. It triggered all these emotions,” she told The Mirror.
She said Danny turned up the next day and “acted as though nothing had happened,” which led her to call off the romance. “I still loved him but I thought this is something I can’t continue to be a part of,” she explained. “It was all very sad.” Shirley also admitted that there were “red flags” in the relationship that she had previously ignored.”
In an April 2026 interview with The Times, Shirley said she had no interest in having a boyfriend. She also expanded on her reasons for calling off her engagement to Danny, adding, “I was always frightened he was going to take his own life. He was disappearing all the time. It just got to a point where it was so upsetting every time it happened that I just decided to call it a day. It’s better to be on my own than constantly worrying, stressful, about somebody else.”
How many ex-husbands does Shirley Ballas have?
Shirley has two ex-husbands. She married her dance partner, Sammy Stopford, when she was just 18 years old.
“My dance teacher said to me, ‘I just don’t like your name,'” Shirley once revealed. “Because it was Shirley Rich. I come from a housing estate, and we were poor, broke. She said, ‘I like the name Sammy and Shirley Stopford, the Non-Stop Stopfords. I think you should get married.’ So at 18, I married Sammy. We got married, and she was exactly right. It was the Non-Stop Stopfords. We went from zero to hero.”
The couple wound up divorcing in 1984 after just four years of marriage. She met her second husband, Corky, at a dance competition in 1982. Corky asked Shirley and Sammy to train him, and he recalled her flirting with him when Sammy wasn’t around.
“When she went back to the U.K., we spoke on the phone every day, or every other day for a year, and she told me she was going to leave Sammy,” Corky dished. “Soon after, she moved to Houston to be with me.” They married in 1985 and divorced in 2007.
Why did Shirley and Corky Ballas split?
Shirley and Corky separated in 2004 when Mark turned 18 and Corky moved out of the family home. After the separation, but before he and Shirley divorced, he began a relationship with his dance student, Kristina Rihanoff. Shirley and Corky finalized their split in 2007, and his relationship with Kristina also eventually ended.
Corky also said that competing with Shirley often took a strain on the marriage. “We would argue every single day,” he recalled to The Sun. “We could have a blazing row and come out on the dance floor, and you could never tell.”
While he said these arguments gave them “adrenaline” when it came to performances, he added, “When you’ve been yelled at for three hours, you don’t want to see them at home. In the car on the way to competitions, we would be arguing furiously about directions. We withdrew from each other and there was no emotional support.”
When they retired from dancing, Corky said he wanted to work on the relationship, but claimed his ex-wife wasn’t willing to try.
Dancing With the Stars: The Next Pro, Series Premiere, Monday, July 13, 8/7c, ABC
