Shirley Ballas ‘heard’ late brother on Kilimanjaro climb

OHMYGOSSIP — Shirley Ballas “heard” her late brother talking to her while she was struggling with altitude sickness on Mount Kilimanjaro.
The ‘Strictly Come Dancing’ judge experienced a severe bout of acute mountain sickness at over 12,000ft as she scaled the peak for Comic Relief, and felt she could hear her sibling David – who took his own life 15 years ago aged 44 – reassuring her when she was feeling disorientated.
Shirley – whose late sibling inspired her to do the climb to raise funds for charity – told The Sun newspaper: “I was having panic attacks. My nose started to bleed. I was vomiting. And then my mind and senses lost control.
“You can’t control the emotions. I was crying over David, I was blaming myself.
“I was going back through all the years in my life, I was thinking I am not worthy.
“Every negative emotion I ever had in my life, whether it be the husbands who were not great to me, or David, or my father, were all coming on that mountain. And I can only put it down to the altitude. It plays tricks on your mind.
“One day when we were climbing really quite far up, because of the altitude I felt I could hear my brother talking to me.
“I was overwhelmed with how tired I was. You start to become disorientated. I felt I could hear my brother going, ‘Shirley’. It was really strange. But I had to remember I was doing this for David and anybody who’s got mental health issues.”
Shirley also suffered two near-death experiences during the tough Comic Relief climb, including one when former NFL player Osi Umenyiora saved her after she slipped on the “nipple-shaped” mountain.
She added: “I slipped and Osi, who is 6ft 4in and an NFL player, had me by the back of my neck, pulling me up to save me. You couldn’t describe it to people because you wouldn’t believe it. You had to be there.”
Other stars who were attempting the climb included ‘Pointless’ presenter Alexander Armstrong, 49, Little Mix’s Jade Thirlwall, 26, and Leigh-Anne Pinnock, 27, and ‘Love Island’ star Dani Dyer, 22.

Source: Female First
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