Self-destructive dance superstar Sergei Polunin: 'Ukraine put me on a list of terrorists'

He was sacked from the Paris Opera Ballet after homophobic and sexist online rants. In an exclusive interview, he talks about the joy of self-sabotage – and his Vladimir Putin tattoo

It is four months since Sergei Polunin used Instagram to destroy his career. And what a job he made of it. When the Royal Ballet’s youngest ever principal dancer praised Vladimir Putin and showed off his chest tattoo of the Russian president, told his male colleagues that they’d better man up and suggested that fat people needed a slap, he pretty much alienated the whole world. In January, the Paris Opera Ballet announced it had fired the Ukrainian, just after announcing it had hired him to play the lead in Swan Lake. The bad boy of ballet lost virtually everything – acting and modelling jobs, a Ted talk, sponsorship.

It was a supreme act of self-sabotage – but by no means his first. This is the man who walked out of the Royal Ballet eight years ago, aged only 21, when he was already being compared to Rudolf Nureyev and Mikhail Baryshnikov.

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from The Guardian https://ift.tt/2TFNk5v

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