He was the bad boy of Irish dancing whose fast feet and bare chest gave traditional moves a sexy, sassy twist.
Now as Michael Flatley celebrates a quarter century in the limelight, he reveals his big regret: his days as hell-raising womaniser.
However, the 63-year-old warns they would probably have been even wilder if he’d found fame earlier.
He says: “We’re all of us human, you know. We have to give people a little bit of room. A little bit of, you know, leeway. We’ve all made mistakes. We’ve all done stupid things from time to time.
“Look, I’ve loved what I’ve done my whole life. It’s what I’ve worked for, and you know, I enjoyed myself to the fullest.
“And you have to remember that I was already 35 when I made my breakthrough so maybe I would have gone even more off the rails if I’d found fame when I was even younger.
“It’s impossible to say, but I’m sure the chances would be much greater that things would have gotten a little bit crazy, but at this point in my life I’m blessed.”
Michael has amassed a fortune of £300million since first bursting on to the stage as the interval act during the Eurovision Song Contest in Dublin in 1994.
But his personal life has been as colourful as his theatre costumes.
His first marriage to Beata Dziaba ended after 11 years in 1997, when he admitted he was having an affair with dancer Kelley Byrne.
In April 2006, he announced his split from long-term live-in fiancee Lisa Murphy just six months before marrying his current wife, dancer Niamh O’Brien.
He says: “I have a loving wife, a woman that I love. And we’re very like-minded. She’s just wonderful. She’s a highly intelligent, young lady.
“And we have a beautiful son, a 14-year-old son. And I’m very lucky that she does his homework with him because it’s beyond me.
“I’d have to stop and look up every second word once they get started.
“But life is good. I’m a very lucky man and a very happy man. That’s where I am.”
Michael’s home life is now solid but his body, once insured for £50m, is crumbling. After five decades of vertebrae-pounding performances, the Lord of the Dance is more battered than his diamond encrusted tap shoes.
“The doctors warned me but I didn’t listen. Now my neck and my back are in a bad way.
“My sacroiliac joints which link my pelvis, and my lower spine are bad. My hips joints are bad. I’ve got a torn right calf muscle, two ruptured Achilles’ tendons and a broken bone in one foot that doesn’t ever seem able to heal.
“I’ve got fractured ribs that still give me trouble sleeping at night. My two shoulders need replacing.”
Michael, who reluctantly hung up his dancing shoes in 2015, but has choreographed the 25-year anniversary Lord Of The Dance show, which tours the UK until July.
But the former ditch digger born in Chicago to Irish parents has no regrets about pummelling his body.
“I wouldn’t trade it. I followed my dream. I wouldn’t have any of this if I didn’t follow my dream,” he says from his Monaco palace.
“You have to make a friend of pain, especially in the dance business, and even though I wake up and struggle to straighten my back every morning, I can honestly say I’ve made the right decision. Can I run for a bus now? Unlikely. Can I scale a flight of stairs? Yes, I just need a lot more runway to get warmed up.
“And will I be celebrating a 50-year anniversary show when I’m 88 in 25 years time? Let’s just take it one day at a time.”
With huge properties in Monaco and Cork, Michael is wealthier than many of the A-listers he’s entertained. And he’s even wowed some of the planet’s most powerful people.
“I performed at the G8 Summit in 2003 in St Petersburg in Russia for all the world leaders at the time.
“So yes, I was in the same room as Tony Blair and George Bush. And Vladimir Putin. All of them. It was the experience of a lifetime.”
Reports at the time suggested less than friendly words were exchanged backstage over the show’s title, Warlord. But Michael flatly refuses to be drawn on that conversation or the Russian dictator’s invasion of Ukraine.
“All I’ll say about the situation is let’s just ask God to protect us all.”
*Lord of the Dance is touring the UK now. Visit www.lordofthedance.com or www.michaelflatley.com to buy your tickets.
