11 dramatic Strictly Come Dancing scandals, from Amanda Abbington’s exit to Seann and Katya’s kiss
Even when Strictly Come Dancing is off-air, barely a few weeks seem to go by without the BBC’s shiny-floor show making headlines good and bad.
The competition, which sees professional dancers team up with celebrities to teach them some fancy footwork, recently celebrated its 20th birthday – but Strictly has also been in the news after pro and past winner Giovanni Pernice, who has been a fixture on the show for almost a decade, released a statement slamming speculation over his teaching methods.
The 33-year-old denied “any suggestion of abusive or threatening behaviour”, months after his most recent dance partner Amanda Abbington quit the series on medical grounds.
The saga surrounding Pernice is just the latest in a string of high-profile Strictly scandals, from rows over ageism to well-publicised love affairs (it’s become so common for contestants and dancers to fall for one another that the phenomenon has been branded the Strictly curse). Here are just a few of the show’s most dramatic moments.
‘Kissgate’
The curse hit hard in 2018, when comedian Seann Walsh was pictured kissing his dance partner Katya Jones outside a London pub (Walsh was in a relationship with at the time, while Jones was married to fellow star Neil). Naturally, the grainy snaps ended up splashed all over the tabloids. How best to contain the scandal? By having the errant pair dance
