Kyle Shilling is used to being called by the wrong name. It started when he was a kid, growing up in country New South Wales with an identical twin brother.
“So, I’ve been known as Jesse for 31 years,” he tells TV WEEK with a laugh.
When Kyle joined the cast of Home And Away in 2023, suddenly strangers started calling him by his character name.
“I was always known as Mali. I’d be walking downtown and I’d hear, ‘Mali! Mali!’”
It’s only since Kyle’s been appearing on Dancing With The Stars that things have changed.
“It was the Monday after my first episode, and I was walking through a shopping centre and I heard this woman say, ‘Oh, that’s Kyle Shilling!’ And I was like, ‘Wait! What? You know me by my full name now?’”
Kyle is the latest in a long line of Home And Away cast members to compete on Dancing With The Stars. He got plenty of advice from Emily Weir, who came runner-up in the show two years ago.
“She was so excited when she found out I was doing it and who I was partnered with,” he says. “All she could tell me was: ‘Have fun, work hard.’ She knew that I had the potential to do it and the potential to go far, so she was great to speak to.”
Dance has been important to Kyle since he was a teenager. His parents supported him when he decided to leave home to study dance at the age of 17.
“I wasn’t heading down the right path,” he admits. “So, when I picked up the opportunity to study this whole new world of dance, they were so supportive. They were upset to see me go, but so proud as well.
“I’m just so grateful to have them as parents.”
Kyle, who grew up around Taree and later Tweed Heads, was thrilled to have his parents in the audience when he was performing on Dancing With The Stars.
“I had a sense of pride, seeing my mum there, all dressed up, looking beautiful, and my dad in something other than three-quarter board shorts and a singlet!”
The judges scored Kyle and his dance partner Lily Cornish harshly for their Viennese waltz, with Craig Revel Horwood saying it was more of a contemporary freestyle piece. Kyle admits the choreography was a risk, but believes it was ‘beautiful’.
“It still hurts,” he says. “You put so much time and effort into something and you end up falling in love with this piece of choreography, only to have it dismissed. But you’ve got to take a risk.
“That kind of criticism, it helps to push us further along.”
