[1] Her parents divorced when she was three years old, and her mother remarried Australian dentist Philip Bussell, who became her adoptive father.

[1] In 1982, at the age of 13, she joined the Royal Ballet Lower School,[1] based at White Lodge, Richmond Park.

[10] Bussell performed all the major classical roles numerous times throughout her career, including Masha in Winter Dreams and Princess Rose in The Prince of the Pagodas, both choreographed by MacMillan, as well as Princess Aurora in The Sleeping Beauty, Odette/Odile in Swan Lake, Nikiya and Gamzatti in La Bayadère, the Sugar Plum Fairy in The Nutcracker, Manon in L'histoire de Manon, and Giselle in Giselle.

She made several guest appearances with the New York City Ballet, starting in June 1993, with a performance of the pas de deux from Agon.

[14][15] She retired from ballet on 8 June 2007 with a performance of MacMillan's Song of the Earth (music Gustav Mahler: Das Lied von der Erde).

Same year she participated in the 2012 Summer Olympics closing ceremony, leading a troupe of 200 ballerinas and 4 male dancers from the Royal Ballet.

[21] Bussell was announced as the first female chair of the Board of Trustees of Plymouth Theatre Royal in March 2023.

[23][24] They feature a girl named Delphie who joins a ballet school and discovers her shoes are magical.

A South Bank Show documentary on Bussell and her fellow principal Viviana Durante was broadcast in October 1992.

[1] In the episode, she aids Geraldine in a fundraiser and the two perform a pas de deux called "The Mirror".

Bussell teamed up with Katherine Jenkins to stage a song and dance production titled Viva la Diva, to pay tribute to the stars who inspired them,[28] who include Madonna and Judy Garland.

[32] In December 2011 Bussell collaborated with choreographer Kim Gavin to make Darcey dances Hollywood, a BBC Two television documentary in which she recreated some of Hollywood's famous dance routines—including some by Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire & Ginger Rogers—from films such as Singin' In The Rain and Top Hat ("Cheek to Cheek").

I have enjoyed every minute of my time and will miss everyone from my fellow judges, the presenters, the dancers, the musicians, the entire back stage team, and especially the viewers of the show, who have been so supportive.

[50] In April 1991 she was selected as the joint winner of the Cosmopolitan Achievement Award in the Performing Arts category.

During the ceremony the university's public orator noted that she "adds to technical mastery, charm and imagination, in such a way that she seems to reveal the grace of her personality as well as the grace of movement… Moreover, she wants those who are perhaps put off by the grand portals of the Royal Opera House to enjoy the pleasures that ballet affords.

[20] She is an ambassador for the giving programme of the New Zealand School of Dance,[57] and is on the board of the Margot Fonteyn Foundation.

[1] Originally, the couple lived in Kensington,[60] moving to Sydney, Australia in 2008[61] and returning to London in July 2012.