Mike Tindall defends his ‘dad dancing’ at the Coronation concert and promises he held back his worse moves

"You can't hear Lionel Richie sing 'All Night Long' and not get up and dance"

Mike Tindall
(Image credit: David M. Benett/Max Cisotti/Dave Benett/Getty Images)

Mike Tindall has defended what royal fans called his ‘dad dancing’ at the Coronation concert and hilariously promised he held back some of his worse moves.


The Coronation concert was a highlight of the bank holiday weekend's celebrations, not least for Mike Tindall's brilliant dancing display during the musical event. 

The royal married Zara Phillips in 2011 after the pair bonded over "getting smashed" on their first date and the couple now share three children together, nine-year-old Mia Grace Tindall, Lena Elizabeth Tindall, who is four-years-old, and the baby of the family, two-year-old Lucas Philip Tindall, but the pair have revealed they will not be adding any more children to their brood

Mike had been a pretty lowkey member of the Royal Family until his stint in ITV's I'm A Celebrity...Get Me Out Of Here, which saw him garner much public adoration for his candid manner and emotional revelations, not least for him sharing the harrowing account of his 'near-death' experience. The Coronation weekend was no different, with the royal and his wife Zara sparking conversation among royal fans as they revealed they partied until 2am the night before the Coronation on a rare date night without the kids. 

Mike Tindall

(Image credit: Jonathan Brady - WPA Pool/Getty Images)

And the fun didn't stop there. During the Coronation concert, Mike Tindall delighted viewers of the event with his 'enthusiastic' dancing that was quickly described across social media as the epitome of 'dad dancing.'

Defending his moves on his podcast The Good, The Bad & The Rugby, the former rugby player shared, "You can't hear Lionel Richie sing 'All Night Long' and not get up and dance.

"The worst thing was, with everything else, where you're going, 'Yeah I'll get up and dance to this,' and I was like 'Is the King not going to stand up?' because it takes a brave man to go out there [and do that].

"I broke my flag; I was that enthusiastic. I did think at one point, 'I really want to dance right now, and if I get up and sort of get into a slutdrop, rip my trousers off… we knew that Kermit was coming at some point, and I was like, 'Could I dance with Kermit the frog?'… I enjoyed myself."

"It was phenomenal. It was an incredible weekend, and I thought the King was on point to a T and I think you could see how much he was concentrating and the emotion that was going into everything."

Zara Phillips and Mike Tindall

(Image credit: Samir Hussein/WireImage)

Mike previously commented on his dancing from the night during an interview with Good Morning Britain, saying that he 'didn't really put his best foot forward' with the dance moves of choice as he was 'next to the King' and wasn't sure how the royal would react to his 'interesting dance maneuvers.'

He revealed, "It's very difficult when you're on a raised platform that's under a lot of lights, I felt I didn't really put my best foot forward ... If you started doing interesting dance maneuvers on that platform next to the King I'm not entirely sure it would have gone down that well!"

"As Hitch once said in the movie, 'You've got to stay in your safe zone' and my flag waving, I tried to do the best flag waving out there."

Charlie Elizabeth Culverhouse
Royal News and Entertainment writer

Charlie Elizabeth Culverhouse is royal news and entertainment writer for Goodto.com. She began her freelance journalism career after graduating from Nottingham Trent University with an MA in Magazine Journalism, receiving an NCTJ diploma, and earning a First Class BA (Hons) in Journalism at the British and Irish Modern Music Institute. She has also worked with BBC Good Food and The Independent.