Oprah Makes Campbell’s Ballet Dreams Come True
By WENNTuesday, May 4, 2010
Talk show queen OPRAH WINFREY helped supermodel NAOMI CAMPBELL realise a dancing dream during a televised tour of the Brit’s adopted Moscow, Russia - she arranged for the catwalk stunner to hit the stage at the home of the Bolshoi Ballet.
Campbell has been living in Russia with boyfriend Vladimir Doronin since 2008 and has been to many Bolshoi performances but never plucked up the courage to go backstage.
The former ballet dancer was invited to dance onstage during her walking guide of the Russian capital and admitted it was a “big, big honour… This is a huge deal… It’s a big first for me… I can actually say I danced on the stage of the Bolshoi, which is a great privilege.”
She said, “When I was, like, three years old, that’s what I wanted to be, a ballet dancer… My mother was a ballet dancer. I love dancing (but) I was always told when I was in England, ‘You’re too tall.’”
Campbell pirouetted and pranced around the stage and then took a ballet masterclass from one of the Bolshoi’s top teachers.
It all became too much for the model and, after her lesson, she sobbed, “All those jitters came back from when I was a child… that smell, the ballet bar. You really dream about doing something since you were a child and then I have this big fear of ever going back to a class… like a block.
“I’ve been saying I’d love to go back into class, but I’ve never been able to have the guts to do it. I guess I just broke one of my fears… It’s something you wished you could have been.”
Speaking to Winfrey, who helped to organise the trip to the Bolshoi, during a recent taped appearance on her show, a grateful Campbell said, “It was amazing. Thank you very much.”
