The Dancing with the Stars contestant revealed he was previously asked to do the show, but he had to turn it down in the end because he landed his role as Bosco on Fair City
Rory Cowan had back surgery last year and he was recently diagnosed with a foot problem, but he is ready for the biggest challenge of his life on Dancing with the Stars before he retires this summer.
The former Mrs Brown’s Boys and Fair City star turns 65 in July and he’s determined not to “let the older person in” as he takes to the dancefloor with show newcomer Jillian Bromwich.
“They’ve asked me to do Dancing with the Stars every year but for a lot of reasons I couldn’t do it,” he told RSVP Magazine.
“They asked me in 2019 and I said ‘Yes’, but I got the gig in Fair City the day after and they couldn’t release me because I would only be starting.
“I had back surgery last year. I’ll be 65 in July, so if I don’t do it now I’ll never do it because I’ve decided I’m going to retire.
“This is the last thing I’m going to do and I want to go out on a high. It is going to be a challenge, but it’s brilliant to be doing something new.
“I’m putting in the hours and I’m doing the best I can. Even if I’m voted out early, I want to leave thinking that I’ve done the best I can. As I’m getting older, I’m saying ‘You can’t let the older person in’. Once the older person gets in, you’ll never get rid of them.”
Rory left the cast of Mrs Brown’s Boys in 2017. There was no row between him and Brendan O’Carroll and he stands by his decision.
“I left for the right reason. I walked away from a fortune, but once I made the decision to leave, it was the easiest decision for me,” he explains. “I had earned quite a lot of money, but my mother was dying.
“We were touring Australia for 12 or 14 weeks and I got word that she had only days to live. She had dementia. I couldn’t come home because I had signed a contract and the insurance only allowed me to come home if a parent or next of kin died.
“We travelled first class everywhere and we stayed in five-star hotels. It was luxury all the way. Everything was perfect but I was miserable in Australia because I couldn’t go home and I didn’t want to be there.
“I thought long and hard about it when I came home. The next tour was in the UK and I could fly home for a few days every week, after that it was back to Australia and I knew I couldn’t do it.
“I didn’t want to be on the road when she died, and I knew it was coming. I would have felt guilty for the rest of my life.”
Rory has “no regrets whatsoever” over the way things happened.
“If I had stayed with Mrs Brown’s Boys I would have had regrets,” he says. “My mother was dying and she was the most important thing in the world to me at the time.
“I have been very busy since I left Mrs Brown’s Boys and I’ve been doing things that I would never have done if I stayed, like writing an autobiography, doing panto and being in Fair City.”
Read the full interview in our special Dancing with the Stars feature in this month’s issue of RSVP Magazine – on shelves now
