Ballet’s baddest boy Sergei Polunin on why he feels ‘free’ at last (2024)

Isn’t it funny how the events (in this case, an interview) that one is oft the most anxious about – turn out to be the best? In my head, there was a minefield of highly explosive subjects to be tip-toed around in my hour-long exchange with the notorious Bad Boy of Ballet, Sergei Polunin. I was anxious, because I intended to tip-toe, before heedlessly diving headfirst to ask the fenced-off ‘dynamite’ questions. First-off about the fist-sized Vladimir Putin tattoo on his chest, the silhouetted head of the leader of the Russian regime, regarded as the No 1 threat to Britain’s national security right now, and secondly, the homophobic ‘self destructive’ tirade he tweeted back in 2019 prompting the Paris Opera Ballet to revoke their invitation for him to perform and the company’s principal to label him a ‘disgrace’. Then there’s his reputation for performing whilst sky high on a cocktail of drugs – or, even, not turning up at all.

But, bad stuff out of the way – many would argue that the 31-year-old new father is one of the best dancers to have walked the earth. A part of the gilded roster of Nuryevs and Baryshnikovs of this world. At 19, the youngest ever Royal Ballet principal (before he left in dramatic fashion two years in) and a genre-spanning star, the subject of Hozier’s viral 29 million-hit wonder Take me to Church and an actor cast alongside the likes of Ralph Fiennes and Judi Dench on screen. And in his – unfailing – capacity to disarm, the interview was amongst the most candid I have ever carried out (and, remarkably, without a floating PR primed ready to intervene should the conversation take a detour from his upcoming autobiography, Free: A Life in Images and Words).

Fleetingly in London, to collect his visa card, Polunin is Zooming me from a room belonging to a friend (it was in April ahead of hospitality opening up). A few minutes late for the interview, he appears on my screen, his dark, haunting tendrils of hair framing his distinctively sharp cheekbones. ‘I was nervous you weren’t going to show up,’ I say, to which he laughs. Polunin’s new book is a visual celebration of his career – and life – to date. Spanning pictures of his youthful beginnings in the Ukraine; at the Royal Ballet School’s White Lodge in London (‘like arriving at Hogwarts’), the dawn of him becoming a bright young talent, and then painted in bronze starring as the ‘Bronze Idol’ in La Bayadère for the Royal Ballet. Later pages show him appearing as the face of global fashion campaigns working with the likes of David LaChapelle and Rankin. A flick through is a reminder of all that he has achieved as a dancer – and just how far he has come from Kherson, a small and dispiriting town in southern Ukraine.

Polunin admits that it was the global Covid restrictions that carved out an opportunity for him to finally create the book, a project that he previously felt he wasn’t ready for. ‘I’m young and I didn't want to be narcissistic about it and to be like, “Oh, I’m 20-something and I’m writing a book,” but when you’re 31, it's kind of a good place to sum up certain things.’ He admits it’s been ‘a lot of work’ involving ‘pure concentration’ (of course, there’s the added complication of translations given Polunin has a global following).

Rather pleasingly, Dame Helen Mirren has contributed a foreword (in which she reveals that she auditioned for the Royal Ballet School aged 13). She praises Polunin’s ‘high art and extraordinary physicality’ as being ‘infused with something I can only describe as a mad passion, a peeling away of the outer layer of control, politeness and discretion’. High praise from one of the UK’s national treasures – I ask Polunin how it felt to have his ‘extraordinary physicality’ praised by Mirren? ‘I actually didn’t read it,’ he confesses. ‘I was extremely thankful, but I didn't want to read something about myself somehow.’ Mirren’s intro is not the only part as yet unread by the dancer; so, too, is the foreword contributed by super-photographer Albert Watson, who has captured everyone from the Queen to former US President Bill Clinton. Polunin makes sense of his behaviour by drawing a comparison. ‘It’s like, sometimes, if it means a lot – like sometimes when a friend gets you a present – then you don’t open it. Because it’s special and you want to keep it that way, you don’t want to unbox it because then that’s it,’ he grapples, ‘I didn't want to be overwhelmed.’

Owing to his ‘extraordinary physicality’ Sergei can hardly sit still – he is Zooming from his phone and over the course of the call (including when the bell rings for food) I witness him from a multitude of angles as the phone gets propped up in different locations – the head of his Putin tattoo just visible through his V-neck T-shirt. Apparently even Polunin’s one-year-old son, Mir, knows who the Russian leader is, occasionally asking his father, ‘Where’s Putin?’

Putin is just one of the many tattoos inked across Polunin, that will soon be gone – as part of a desire to be ‘better’ for his son. Lockdown was a good time for the family of three, Sergei, Mir and his girlfriend, Elena Ilinykh (a 27-year-old Russian former ice-skater). ‘I got to know Elena, Elena got to know Mir, Mir got to know us,’ he laughs. ‘It’s a slow change, but you want to be better for him. Because it doesn't matter what you say to children, they copy you and the best way is by example.’ As for the removal of the tattoos, it’s a long ‘torturous’ two-year commitment. But it’s about ‘changing yourself’ and Polunin is keen to discover who he is without the tattoos. ‘I want to see this guy,’ he tells me. Although the physical pain is one thing, Polunin says another pain is ‘removing something you like’. He elaborates: ‘Because everything becomes yours; it's people who I like, or, who I know, one way or another.’ As well as Putin, there’s his cat, the actor Mickey Rourke, James Dean and the Indian goddess Shiva etched across his skin (soon to be removed).

Polunin, quite understandably, has mixed feelings about social media. It’s the platform upon which he chose to ‘destroy’ himself (as he describes it) but, he explains: ‘At the same time, through social media, I found Elena and my son was born.’ It was on social media, following the tirade, at the point when he was about to delete his social media accounts, that Polunin discovered messages from Elena. He chose to press reply and pursue the person behind the screen – and the rest is history. ‘It really showed me different sides to social media and I'm very thankful actually. That this platform connected us and that my son was born out of our meeting.’ He feels like the punishment he endured as a result of social media was almost ‘karmic’ and it led to him feeling more ‘free’ than ever on stage. Polunin was previously romantically linked to the Royal Ballet’s Russian principal ballerina, Natalia Osipova.

At last, the often complicated relationship Polunin has had with ballet since he was 17, appears to be thawing. His production company, Polunin Ink, is intent on moving the industry forwards and bringing about greater awareness of the art. ‘The language of dance is very important for us and for some reason it sits in us. What a weird thing is dancing, right? It’s like – why do you dance? Who made ballet? Why is my baby dancing? Nobody taught him that. It’s in us for whatever reason,’ Polunin thinks aloud. ‘Let’s use it in films, let’s use it in theatre, let’s use it in different environments and take it to different places’.

It’s difficult not to get swept up when Polunin is talking like this, creatively incensed, a glimmer of the ‘mad passion’ Dame Helen saw. As for the title of the book, it’s certainly very apt – ‘freedom’ is regularly cited in our conversation. ‘In my opinion, for artists, for dancers or for anybody, I think the feeling of freedom is so essential – whether that be freedom of money or freedom of creation.’ As restrictions ease, Polunin’s worldwide projects resume; there’s the new music video for Depeche Mode In Your Room, the sequel to his first film, Dancer, and Polunin Ink’s Romeo and Juliet is en route to the Royal Albert Hall come December – and, true to his book’s title, he’s appears to be feeling freer than ever.

FREE: A Life in Images and Words by Sergei Polunin is available now (teNeues, €50), teNeues.com

Sergei Polunin stars in Romeo & Juliet, 1 December 2021 at the Royal Albert Hall