JJ Chalmers is taking part in ‘Strictly Come Dancing’ to honour the people who “put him back together” after he was involved in an IED explosion in Afghanistan.
JJ Chalmers
The former Royal Marine turned TV presenter is set to take part in the BBC Latin and ballroom dance competition this year, and has said he agreed to take part in the show as a “thank you” to the people who “put in hours of work” to save his life after he suffered devastating injuries as a result of the explosion.
JJ suffered a crushed eye socket and burst eardrums, lost two fingers and his right elbow disintegrated during the blast, which also killed two of his colleagues as well as an interpreter.
He said of the horrific event: “Getting blown up is the expressway to perspective and being able to not take things for granted. The things that I’ve had to endure were not pleasant at the time and they cause problems to this day.
“But once you’ve endured them, they make you stronger. So you can come into whatever challenges in life and you can apply that, whether you let things pull you down or build you up.”
And whilst ‘Strictly’ is “not the biggest challenge” the 33-year-old star has ever faced, he believes dancing on the show will prove to those who helped save his life that he would have “never got here” without them.
Speaking to The Sun newspaper, he added: “This is not the biggest challenge I’ve faced in my life, but it’s the challenge in front of me right now. This is the biggest ‘thank you’ I can give to the people that put in these hours of work and just committed their life to putting people like me back together.
“The one thing you can do is go out there and try to make them proud that they played a part in this. I really hope that when I get on that dancefloor, the emotion of it isn’t too much.
“I hope they just have a smile on their face and know that without them I would have never got here.”