de Mooi (pronounced [də ˈmoːi]; born Andrew Paul Booth on 5 November 1969)[1] is a British actor, writer, former professional quizzer and television personality.

[5] On a self-recorded YouTube video,[6] De Mooi said he had a highly abusive childhood, causing him to run away from home shortly after his seventeenth birthday and become homeless beginning in Rotherham and Sheffield.

[7] Later in the video, De Mooi talked about how he travelled to London, jumped on a ferry to Amsterdam and later moved on to Cologne, where a chance encounter outside a gay bar led to the beginnings of his modelling career.

[citation needed] In 2000, De Mooi applied to several game and quiz television shows as a contestant and stood out for being outspoken.

[citation needed] As part of the Cardiff Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Mardi Gras in March 2007, De Mooi acted as host of a quiz night.

De Mooi described the events, which saw Kirsan Ilyumzhinov re-elected over Anatoly Karpov, as "a farce of a vote", going on to declare: "You wouldn't believe the blatant breaking of rules and FIDE's written statutes.

[15] In 2014, he performed in and produced two plays by Harvey Fierstein in London's West End and was then cast in the Lazarus Theatre productions of Troilus and Cressida and Coriolanus.

[24]April 2019, De Mooi posted on Twitter about his health and about his financial and professional problems and a GoFundMe campaign was launched, saying he is "bankrupt, extremely ill and in imminent danger of losing his house.

BBC released a statement saying that "Strictly is a family show and we have chosen the traditional format of mixed-sex couples."

[20] De Mooi stated in his autobiography that in 1988 he punched a man who was attempting to mug him and shoved him into a canal in Amsterdam.

[30][31] A judge at Westminster Magistrates' Court declined the extradition request on technical grounds, on 24 October 2016, saying that no UK arrest warrant had been issued.

[34] In 2015 he ran in the London Marathon for Shooting Star CHASE, a children's hospice, finishing in 2 hours 58 minutes 30 seconds.