The mother of a former student of a prestigious ballet school has described the horror she felt when she saw her daughter, who had lost a dramatic amount of weight since starting her training, looking “like a skeleton”.
Harriet Royle, 22, was 13 when she started at Birmingham’s prestigious Elmhurst Ballet School – of which Queen Camilla was patron for six years – but after just over a year she ended up in hospital and diagnosed with anorexia.
Recalling the moment she realized Harriet needed help, she described a visit after the Easter holidays in 2015 to watch a performance and noticing her skeleton as the teenager put on a leotard and tights.
“I had to leave the building because I was shocked by her appearance,” Michaela admitted.
“It should never have gotten to the point where I had to say to the school, ‘I have to take her home.'”
Harriet told the program that she had had problems with her body image when she started school – and had episodes of bulimia soon afterwards, which they were aware of – but that by November 2014 she was feeling ‘fit and healthy’.
However, an assessment telling her she needed to work on her ‘aerobic fitness’ shattered her confidence.
“I felt like I was fit enough,” she said. “I thought, if I can keep up with the boys, why isn’t my aerobic fitness good enough to do what the girls do?” It just wasn’t right.’
Harriet Royle, 22, was 13 when she started at the prestigious dance institute, but after just over a year she ended up in hospital and diagnosed with anorexia
The teenager had to be hospitalized and was diagnosed with anorexia that same year. Pictured after her dramatic weight loss
The teen had felt like she was “just being told that she needed to exercise more to lose weight.”
“I was like, let’s do it then,” she added.
Four months later, she claims her teachers were “happy” to see her thinning quickly and surely – and the teen felt like she was getting more attention from the teachers.
“One of the female ballet teachers had said, ‘Keep doing what you’re doing because it’s working,’” Michaela said.
When she saw the young teen putting on a leotard and tights, she noticed how thin Harriet had become
“So Harriet’s interpretation of that was, because she had lost some weight, they wanted her to lose some more.”
Harriet revealed that it was ‘affirming’ to see that ‘what you’re doing is the right thing… to the point where it feels like you can’t really stop’.
Her weight loss continued at school and during holidays and quickly spiraled out of control.
Harriet’s mother says her daughter’s extreme weight loss should never have reached the stage where she had to intervene and tell the school to take her home.
Harriet’s battle with anorexia continued after she left school. She ended up spending at least six months in an eating disorder unit and had to be tube-fed. She never returned to Elmhurst.
The teenager had to be hospitalized and was diagnosed with anorexia that same year.
According to the programme, Michaela had raised her concerns about Harriet at the school in March 2015 and was reassured that they were ‘monitoring the situation’.
Panorama also heard heartbreaking stories from other former dancers about their experiences at Britain’s top ballet schools: the Royal Ballet School in London and the Elmhurst Ballet School in Birmingham.
According to the programme, Michaela (pictured) had raised her concerns about Harriet at the school in March 2015 and was reassured that they were ‘monitoring the situation’.
Last year, both institutions jointly received more than £7 million in public funding.
But despite their fame, stories from former students tell of a toxic culture of body shaming, when a dancer said a teacher stood her in front of a mirror, pointed at her body and told her, “If I had a knife, this is what i would do. would cut off.’
Ellen Elphick, 30, who started at the Royal Ballet School in London in 2009, told Panorama: ‘She literally cut off my whole bum, half my thigh actually, and then a third of my calf.’
The former student describes feeling ashamed and filled with hatred for her body – and says her eating disorder spiraled after this encounter.
Ellen had previously developed an eating disorder at Elmhurst, but says her experience at the Royal ‘broke her’.
“I don’t think I’ve ever really gotten back together,” she says.
Ellen, who danced professionally for four years, says she still suffers from feeling like her body is the wrong shape. She has now decided to take legal action against the Royal Ballet School.
She added, “Am I one of the lucky ones because I still had that career? Maybe? But that doesn’t mean I don’t have problems my whole life that I just have to find a way to deal with.’
Attorney Dino Nocivelli, who represents Ellen and several other ballet dancers from another school, said his clients have come forward for a variety of reasons and that some want “an admission” about their treatment and “to hold these schools accountable.”
Panorama also heard heartbreaking stories from other former dancers about their experiences at Britain’s top ballet schools. Queen Camilla photographed at Elmhurst Ballet School earlier this year
Last year, both institutions jointly received more than £7 million in public funding. King Charles pictured at the Royal Ballet School in 2019
Elsewhere, Padua Eaton, who was offered a place at Elmhurst in 2008 at the age of 11, said her mental health deteriorated due to the years she spent training in ballet – leading to an attempt to end her life.
“I started getting depressed around 14 or 15,” she said. “My body started to change, I started to take on the shape of a woman.”
While the school stepped in to provide support – and gave her extra breaks to manage panic attacks – the former student said she wasn’t actually given the chance to use them.
“So even though I was getting these breaks, it was hard to actually get them… ‘Do you really need to know?’
Padua said she felt her mental health issues were “annoying” to the school and made her feel like a “burden.”
Grace Owen, 22, says a teacher in Elmhurst once taunted the class over donuts, which students had been told were available after class.
The teacher picked the thinnest student and told them only they could eat one, she says.
“This implied that she could eat them because she was the right weight and no one else,” says Grace, who was 19 at the time.
“You’re actually too fat for everyone else.”
During her 2020 Elmhurst graduation party, Grace says she and several of her classmates were humiliated by another ballet teacher.
She claims the teacher said, “You girls, except for one or two people, need to lose weight or you won’t get a job.”
Grace says it made her feel “really unworthy”, adding that all the school really cared about was “how thin you are”. She described the environment in Elmhurst as “toxic.”
Grace added: ‘The ballet world is a brutal place, but telling people you’re too fat… I don’t think that prepares you for anything.’
BBC Panorama said that while neither school wanted to be interviewed for this programme, Elmhurst said in a statement that it ‘promotes good physical and mental health and ‘acts when problems are identified’.
‘It pioneered a ‘groundbreaking health trust programme’, offering ‘tailored health and wellbeing support’. It has a ‘modern educational approach’, placing ‘highly disciplined training’ within the framework of ‘strong security principles’…
‘It acknowledges certain elements, but ‘clear confidentiality obligations’ prevent it from commenting.
“However, it says that ‘school data differs in a number of important ways’ from the data provided to the program.”
Meanwhile, the Royal Ballet School told Panorama that ‘nothing is more important than the happiness and continued wellbeing of its students’ and that it is ‘constantly improving and innovating’ to protect their health and wellbeing.
‘If issues arise, it has ‘proven processes’ in place to ensure they are ‘addressed quickly’. The school “strives to work towards excellence” and does so with “integrity and passion.”
The programme, which airs today at 8pm on BBC One, is also available on BBC iPlayer.
If you are concerned about your own health or that of someone else, please contact Beat, the UK eating disorder charity, on 0808 801 0677 or beateatingdisorders.org.uk