RTE star shock docs with shock health benefit from huge TV show

WILD Youth singer David Whelan has revealed how strutting his stuff on Dancing With The Stars has helped bond his shattered collarbone back together.

The frontman, 29, made it to the finals of the RTE One dance show in January with a plate inserted alongside his collarbone to help it heal after a freak accident.

But surgeons at Connolly Hospital in Blanchardstown, Dublin, were astonished when they removed the plate in recent weeks to find his collarbone had healed.

And they believe this was down to David doing months of intense dancing with pro Salome Chachua, 34, on DWTS.

David told the Irish Sun: “My left shoulder was the one I smashed up.

“And I was pushing my left arm into Salome who was pushing it back as we danced for ten or eleven hours a day.

“The surgeon thinks all the compression of Salome pushing into my elbow and shoulder fused my collarbone back together.

“They have taken the plate out now and I have never felt better. And that’s all down to myself and Salome pressing our bodies together as a unit for months and months on Dancing With The Stars.”

However, David admits he hasn’t kept up the dance lessons after the show ended.

He said: “Even if I went back to ­ballroom classes, I don’t think it could ever be the same.

I was being taught by one of the best dance teachers in the world. I’m never going to experience that again.”

Then Taoiseach Leo Varadkar was among those who had tipped David to win — but he was pipped by Paralympian Jason Smyth, 37, and partner Karen Byrne, 32, who lifted the Glitterball trophy.

However, David was over the moon just to make the finals after a freak accident at a New Year’s Eve event in 2022.

He was dropped from a height of 8ft and landed on his neck, with the impact turning his collarbone “into dust”.

David underwent two ops and needed permission from surgeons to compete in DWTS, with some overhead lifts banned.

He said: “I was advised I couldn’t go full out on Dancing With The Stars but I decided to throw myself into it.

“It was painful but I pushed through that pain. I was the first one in and out each day. As corny as it sounds I only wanted to get to the final.

“That’s the truth. I wanted to do 11 weeks and dance 11 styles and make the final. Then it was anyone’s game in the final. I was just happy to have gotten there.”

Dubliner David credits DWTS with getting him “out of a dark place” after his horror accident.

“Weirdest experience”

But the star — who ­competed in Eurovision 2023 with Wild Youth bandmates Conor O’Donohoe, Ed Porter and Callum McAdam — admits he faced a massive come down in the weeks after the show vanished from our screens.

He said: “It was the weirdest experience.

“I’d never known ­anything like it when the adrenaline wears off and you come down off it. I felt so sore I couldn’t walk ­properly.

“But doing DWTS was an amazing way to build my body back up. I have a full range of movement now.”