Shirley Ballas opened up about her mum's battle with a painful lung condition. The head judge, 65, spoke candidly in a new interview about Audrey's health woes. Shirley, who joined Strictly Come Dancing in 2017, lives with her mum, who has Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) which is a lung condition, that causes the airways to narrow and become inflamed, which in turn makes it harder to breathe.

The professional dancer splits her time between her work commitments and taking care of her 88 year old mother. Addressing her beloved family member's health, Shirley confessed her mum's condition is getting worse.

Speaking to The Mirror, the Strictly star said: "It’s a slow regression, it’s a slow death, my mum smoked the majority of her life.

“The only time she didn’t was when my brother died. Under those stressful conditions she stopped, but nobody will stop her smoking now."

Shirley added, “She’s nearly 90, she’s going to have a whisky and a smoke and she knows what comes with it."

The BBC star shared her mum's health is a "24/7 worry" as if "she gets a cold it can turn into pnuemonia".

The Merseyside-born dancer said she had "never heard" of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), which causes breathing difficulties, until her mother Audrey was diagnosed with it in 2022.

Shirley previously said she had an "A* relationship" with her mother, who took on four jobs so her daughter could learn to dance as a child.

She told the BBC: "She is queen bee. She's the true queen of the house, shall we say, and I shall forever have true gratitude for everything that she's done for me throughout my life."