Shirley Ballas shares new harrowing suicide experience as she issues emotional plea

Shirley Ballas revealed she recently endured a harrowing situation involving a person who wanted to take their own life.

Having lost her brother, David, to suicide in 2003, the Strictly Come Dancing judge has been an advocate for suicide prevention charity, Campaign Against Living Miserably (CALM).

CALM's lastest campaign is marking the lives of young people who have died by suicide over the last 10 years. Running until Wednesday (September 10) at Westfield in London, CALM unveiled a powerful installation of 6,929 balloons to represent a birthday the young person never reached.

Shirley, 64, expressed her "shock" at the statistic, but recognised the powerful message CALM's new campaign will have in bringing the issue of youth suicide into public conversation.

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Speaking exclusively to Express.co.uk, Shirley said: "They told me that in the last 10 years 6,929 young people have died by suicide. I was quite shocked by that statistic and young women aged under 24 has seen the highest rise in suicide rates since the record began.

"I think it’s great launching this campaign for world suicide prevention day. It’ll bring the issue of youth suicide out of the shadows and into the public conversation."

Shirley continued: "This launch campaign about the missed birthday is very creative with focus on activating adults with caring responsibilities. Any trusted adults to become part of this prevention and become allies for CALM.

"I just think it’s amazing. Each balloon will represent an age. I was told the balloons will all be donated to the children’s scrap project to be used in arts and crafts so I think they’ve covered everything. It’ll be a fantastic campaign."

While Shirley understands the importance of speaking about suicide, she recognises how hard others fine it as people simply don't want to address the issue - however, she hopes this will change over time.

She said: "I’m shocked at the number of people who have lost a family members, children or a friend to suicide. It’s getting better, people are talking about it but we’re still not there yet. People don’t speak about it. They don’t want to talk about it. It’s not a subject heading that people want to address."

Over the weekend, Shirley found herself in a situation where someone wanted to take their own life, admitting she found it difficult to watch the impact it had on those around him.

Shirley explained: "We had an experience this weekend with somebody who wanted to take his own life. He didn’t, but the amount of people it affected around him. I thought I was in the nucleus of the storm, watching the snowball effect of family and friends, it was horrible."