The 59-year-old was diagnosed with colorectal cancer in 2016, and in 2021, he staggered into St James’s Hospital with chest pain and within minutes was told “you’re having a massive heart attack.” He underwent a quadruple by-pass.
In light of the health issues he faced in previous years, he said he thought about participating in the show “long and hard” and underwent a stress test before the show started.
“The morning after the first show, I see St James’s Hospital cardiology calling me on my phone, because I saved all these numbers, and I’m thinking: ‘Oh, f**k, somebody’s going to ring and tell me off, or something’,” he said.
“But it was actually my surgeon, Sarah, and she said to me: ‘Brian, congratulations. I just couldn’t believe my eyes’. She was the one who actually stopped my heart, took it out of my body, reconnected it all up with all of the new veins, and did the quadruple bypass.”
Singer Brian Kennedy with Pro Dancer James Cutler during the live show of RTE’s Dancing With The Stars. Photo: Kyran O’Brien
The first live performance of the Belfast native and his professional dance partner, James Cutler, saw them performing a Viennese Waltz to Billy Joel’s Piano Man.
The You Raise Me Up singer said his dance partner started to “represent” Kennedy’s “past self” to him.
“We started doing these dances, and I’m heavier than I’ve ever been, and I’m almost 60, and my body’s like Frankenstein’s monster,” he said. “I’ve got all these scars. I was calling it ‘Dancing with the Scars’ for a while,” he said.
“So what became apparent to us was that he really embodied my previous pre-cancer self, my previous pre-heart attack self, when I could just pick any kind of jacket or pair of trousers off the shelf and put them on.
“And now all those things have changed, and yet here I am, DWTS, the biggest programme on TV, and it’s about physical activity. So it’s not lost on me how incredibly lucky I am to even be able to stand up straight.
“Never mind when I had to learn to walk again from scratch after the cancer, nine-hour surgery, same with the quadruple heart bypass. I had to learn to walk again after that, too, because it was so severe on my body.”
Speaking about the performance, he said it was a “relief” that the pair received a high score of 23 points.
“I went into my own world at that point, so I had to be told about five times that we’ve done quite well.
“That’s such a relief, because I was really knocked out by thinking about the people at home who were sitting there, who’ve lost their confidence after having to have a colostomy bag or urostomy bag as well, like me, or a quadruple heart bypass.
“And you put on a brave face, and you go: ‘I’m fine’. But actually, inside, you’re kind of going: ‘I’m terrified to go to the end of the road’.
“I’m terrified to walk too fast, go to the pub with my mates anymore, or go on this walk, the things you used to do. Hopefully, if anything comes across, that will come across for sure.
“I met a relatively old lady recently, and she came to the concert. She queued up and got a CD, I signed it, and she said: ‘I have to tell you something. I have a colostomy bag as well. When I went in for surgery, the doctor said to me: ‘When you wake up, you’re going to have a colostomy bag’. And I leaned in, and I said: ‘If it’s good enough for Brian Kennedy, it’s good enough for me’.
“And I nearly burst out crying. It just shows you that just one person being brave about it really makes a difference like that.”
He said he didn’t “really realise” his first dance would “make him so emotional”.
“I nearly burst out crying. I’ve had such a lot of grief, in a way, and I’ve had a lot of awful things happen to my body. But actually, in the end, my body’s been so good to me, because it’s let me recover, and so that all hit me at once when we got upstairs, and I managed to just hold it together enough to go: ‘Oh, I see that’s what’s going on’.
“I’m kind of making peace with my past, horrendous 10 years. My 50s were horrendous, and I can’t wait to embrace my 60s and go: ‘Aren’t I a lucky dog?’,” he added.
Singer Brian Kennedy with Pro Dancer James Cutler during the live show of RTE’s Dancing With The Stars. Photo: Kyran O’Brien
The artist has a nineteenth album on the way, and is looking to do special concerts for the 30th anniversary of A Better Man.
“What better time to have that title across my head? My other t-shirt that I would really love to make for the series, if they let me, it’ll say on the front: ‘From cancer to dancer’.”
The musician also praised his dance partner, James Cutler, whom he described as “very supportive”. The duo will now take on a Cha-cha-cha to Benson Boone’s Mr. Electric Blue in tonight’s episode.
“I didn’t know it was going to be a man, so I said: ‘Look, I’d dance with anybody’.
“He started to represent for me my younger self, and he was really up for that, because he’s got his own family stuff with cancer as well. So I took a lot of solace from that.
“He’s very supportive. He will constantly say to me: ‘Brian, you are doing better than you think you are’, because I’m pretty self-critical about stuff. He’s been a real source of comfort, inspiration and taking no sh*t either.
“The brilliant thing about James is that he tailors everything. He did his homework. He looked up my condition. He looked up what was possible.”
Dancing with the Stars airs Sundays at 6:30pm on RTÉ One and RTÉ Player.
Singer Brian Kennedy with Pro Dancer James Cutler. Photo: Barry McCall