Strictly Come Dancing’s JJ Chalmers taught to dance by fellow Marine in Afghanistan weeks before bomb injury
STRICTLY star JJ Chalmers was taught ballroom dancing by a fellow Royal Marine in Afghanistan just weeks before they were both injured by a roadside bomb.
Lance Corporal Cassidy Little, 39, was serving with JJ, 33, when the Scots soldier approached him in 2011 to learn to dance for his brother’s upcoming wedding.
Cassidy – who studied ballet on a scholarship at Lindenwood University in Missouri – told The Sun on Sunday: “I told him just to tap his foot and count to four, but he wasn’t having it.
“He wanted to know what to do if the opportunity for a slow dance came up. Somebody had to lead and he wasn’t going to be the girl at the wedding, so I did it.
“It gets incredibly hot out there, so we were in just shorts and flip flops with our rifles and helmets with us. I told him to put his hand on my shoulder blades and keep his elbow high and we started to walk through it.
“We were going, ‘step, two, three, step, two, three’, when the next thing I know, we had 10 guys standing in a circle watching us as we waltzed in the middle of the desert in Afghanistan.
“They gathered around, but nobody was taking the p**s. It was almost like a theatre show. For a brief moment, and for anybody looking, we weren’t soldiers anymore.”
They both suffered life changing injuries in May 2011 when comrade Sam Alexander, 28, stepped on an IED. Sam and boss Lt Ollie Augustin, 23, were killed in the explosion.
JJ suffered injuries to his arms and legs and lost two fingers. Cassidy lost his right leg below the knee.
Cassidy added: “When I woke up in ICU, JJ was in the bed next to me. We then got sent to the Headley Court hospital in Surrey to recover.
“We ended up with rooms down the hall from each other.”
Cassidy left the Royal Marines in 2015 and trained as an actor. He has appeared on Coronation Street and starred in Hollywood action flick Doom: Annihilation.
He is a proud supporter of The Soldiers’ Arts Academy, which provided workshops and opportunities in the industry for servicemen and veterans.
He also won The Peoples’ Strictly partnering with pro-dancer Natalie Lowe, 40, five years ago.
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Cassidy, who is currently starring in sci-fi short-film ARPU, believes pal JJ can go “all the way” on the BBC1 series with Welsh pro Amy Dowden, 30.
He said: “I want JJ to believe he can go all the way. It’s a mind set that will help him if he has any kind of doubt.
“JJ will take it day-to-day and make each one a victory. It’s what we do.”
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