Getting To Know The Real Terrell Owens On Dancing With The Stars

Entertainment Tonight has a super feature on Terrell Owens for Dancing With The Stars. Let’s just say, Terrell is hoping to show the “real” Terrell Owens on Dancing With The Stars and not the person he’s been made out to be in the press in the past. Also, did you know Terrell once won a Michael Jackson dance contest? Here is a take below, but, see this link for much much more. I know who my Dad will be rooting for…yes, Terrell and Cheryl.

“Once I realized that I had the same skill set to be able to play on the level of some of the guys around me that I saw initially were better than I was, that was an eye-opener for me,” he adds. “It’s all about believing in yourself and that desire to be something special. I didn’t realize what I could become, and that’s the same thing I’m going to apply to this dance thing. You never know what can happen.”

Owens was raised by his mother, Marilyn Owens Heard, and grandmother, Alice Black, who died from Alzheimer’s in January 2012. Though the two have re-patched their relationship in recent years, for the most part, Owens grew up without a father.

“My grandmother, she served – she was put in a position to be not only my grandmother, but my dad and my mom in a lot of ways,” Owens, who now has four kids of his own, recalls. “I think me not having a dad in the household and understanding how it affected me has really made me a better dad and a better person. I’m definitely not going to put my kids in a situation where they say that their dad wasn’t there for them.”

“I really take pride in and really respect and have taken to heart what my grandmother did for me and really raising me to be the person that I am,” he continues. “I’m not perfect by any means, but in terms of from a public standpoint, my persona, my character, is unblemished.”

And now, just days away from his debut on Dancing With the Stars, Owens tells ET that he wishes his grandma could be around today to see him shine on the dance floor… and recreate some of his iconic Michael Jackson moves!

“This is definitely a show I wish she could have seen, and one I’m sure she would have loved to have watched,” he says. “In our town, back in the ’80s and ’90s when Michael Jackson was at the height of his career, he was my childhood favorite artist. As a little kid, when breakdancing and pop-locking was in, those were some of the things I gravitated towards.”

“In our small town of Alexander City, they had a Michael Jackson dance contest, and in a small town, everybody kinda knows everybody,” he continues. “All the male cousins I had, we all entered into the contest and there were a couple of contests that were put on. We literally won first, second and third place, all three of us. So, that was kind of like my first experience really dancing in front of a big crowd… and the extent of my dancing.”