I went behind the scenes at Strictly, here’s the truth about harsh scores and ‘sex bans’
Lily Waddell,
Yahoo News UK
I exclusively spoke to Lewis Cope, Amber Davies, Vicky Pattison and more stars of the BBC show
I went behind the scenes at Strictly Come Dancing, where I discovered the secrets behind the BBC’s crown jewel.
As the entertainment news editor for Yahoo UK, I’m fortunate to have met the Strictly pros and celebrity contestants starring in this series.
I heard all about the “harsh” judges’ scores as well as the truth about dance experience, sex bans and the Strictly kiss.
Truth about the sex ban
Vicky Pattison has set the record straight as she said there is no sex ban but her husband Ercan is waiting patiently.
After gruelling eight-hour days of rehearsals, the podcast host doesn’t have the energy to have sex with her “saint” husband.
She told me: “My poor husband, mate, like, he has got the patience of a saint. Right, so obviously this is quite clearly been blown out of proportion. There’s no ban. I’m knackered, mate.”
She added, “I was a podcaster, a radio host, a presenter. The most I probably did like 1,000 steps a day, maybe five if I walk the dogs, but now I don’t stop. I’m physically done in. So after like seven or eight hours of the American smooth, no one’s got the energy for the mattress mambo, let us tell you.
“And if anybody does, they’re a better woman than me. So Ercan is having to exercise some extreme patience. I love him. I love him and he loves me. He’s a great, he’s a great man. I will sh*g him again eventually.”
No drama in the Strictly kiss
Strictly was in the headlines when Nikita Kuzmin was seen giving Amber Davies a friendly kiss on the forehead after rehearsals, as captured in paparazzi photos published by The Sun.
Speaking about the forehead kiss, Davies told me: “The photo is self-explanatory and I don’t wanna breathe any more air into this conversation.”
Her pro dance partner, Kuzmin, teased: “Whoa! Damn, the PR training is! She is good.”
What’s clear is how good friends everyone on the series is. Davies said: “Honestly, I think what you go through together as a whole company is unbelievable, and I feel like you build such a unique friendship with everyone and that it’s so special and you’ll remember it forever.”
She turned to Kuzmin to say, “And I think we’ll be friends forever.”
The harsh scoring
Behind the scenes, La Voix — whose real name is Chris Dennis — revealed the pressure on Strictly is “relentless”. There is always talk about the judging on Strictly being harsh, so what do the celebrities taking part make of this?
Strictly Come Dancing 2025 scoreboard
Gladiators Harry Aikines-Aryeetey admitted “swallowing” feedback from the judges can be “tough”.
Aikines-Aryeetey told me: “We love them [the judges]. It’s really tough. I’ve come from a background where I’m results-driven. When I cross the line first in the 100m, I know I’ve won. Even when I catch someone on the wall, it’s results-driven.”
He added, “Everyone is standing and applauding, and then all of a sudden, you get, ‘Well, I hated it. ’ And so you have got to understand how to embody that feeling, swallow it, work on it or whatever. But so far feedback we’ve had from the nation, they’ve just been entertained and they’ve enjoyed what we’ve done, and that’s the most important thing for us.”
His dance partner, the longest-serving pro, Karen Hauer, has a “completely different mindset”. “Listen, I think the judges have a really tough job on their hands, because there are things they’re gonna like, there are things they’re not gonna like. I think they should like all of our things.
“But you know what, it’s taste and it’s sometimes hard to like swallow it when they don’t like it because you put so much work into it. The first thing that you think about is the judges, you always wanna impress them so I’ve made a decision not to impress them.
“Now listen, I think they have a tough job on their hands, but at the same time, we’re working as hard as we can to be as precise, to fix any critiques that they have.” She joked, “I really like my job, guys.”
Dance experience
It’s no secret that some of the celebrities have more dance experience than others, with much of the conversation revolving around West End star Davies and Lewis Cope. Pro dancer Kuzmin admitted that having a dance partner with more experience can impact the scoring.
Asked whether you get judged more harshly with more experience, Kuzmin said: “The answer is yes and no, because obviously they are still trying always to do the best for us, but at the same time I think in a TV show like Strictly where you have different dancing abilities throughout the whole cast, everybody’s marked individually on their potential on where they are because otherwise it will be too much discrepancy.
“People receiving 10s and twos in the same week. So yes, they obviously have high expectations, but we also want to have high expectations because we’re trying our best. We are really trying to actually deliver every week the best of what we can, and the judges also expect something from us, and so does the audience.
“There is pressure, definitely, but it’s a nice kind of pressure and it’s then it’s for us to understand how to ease it off and understand where it’s between it’s fun and actually going for it.”
While Love Island’s Davies has been in the West End recently, Cope was in Billy Elliot at the age of 11. What’s misunderstood is that he never had the leading part; by his own admission, he wasn’t “good enough”, and he isn’t a professionally trained dancer.
He told me, “Look, I did do dancing when I was a teenager. I did a couple of years of it, really. I was obviously in Billy Elliot, but I didn’t play Billy Elliot. I wasn’t good enough, so I play Michael, which is basically, I don’t know if you saw the show, but he basically acts all the way through the show and he has one tap dance, that was it.
“And then after that I was with a hip hop dance crew for a couple of years. But then I actually went off and trained professionally as an actor. I didn’t go and train professionally as a dancer. I went and did just straight acting for three years, and then probably for the last eight years or something now it’s only, I’ve only ever acted, so it’s been brilliant actually going back into a dance studio.”
His professional dancer, Katya Jones — who has been on the series for 10 years now — revealed teaching is no different this time round.
She said, “For me personally, every year is very different. That’s why I keep coming back, because it’s never the same with different partners. This year’s been exceptionally exciting… But it’s equally challenging to have someone with potential, let’s say, because my job is to showcase Lewis in the best possible way and meet people’s expectations naturally of it, which actually baffles me, really.
“Being in the rehearsal room as a teacher, it hasn’t been any easier or harder or any different. I’m still having to teach a student from scratch who knows nothing about the dance and doesn’t even know what shoes to bring!”
Most dance-off experience
On the flip side, Balvinder Sopal and Julian Caillon shook off their worries about the dance-off. They have survived the dreaded slot three times now, but I spoke to them last week before their third dance-off.
Seeing the positives, Caillon said: “We’re also the couple with the most dance-off experience. That’s got to be an advantage there somewhere, right?”
Sopal shared her thoughts on being in the dance-off. She said: “I think what’s really interesting is as the weeks go on, you learn the show, so you kind of get not necessarily comfortable but really familiar with the fact that this could happen and it’s okay.
“Also, the judge’s scores don’t necessarily reflect what the audience will do. It’s all to play for, actually, and I think if you can go in with a sense of whatever happens, we’ll just take it in our stride, which we have done.”
Nepo baby jokes
The friendships behind the scenes are the very fabric of Strictly, and pro dancer Alexis Warr didn’t mind teasing her partner over being a “nepo baby” in a TikTok video.
YouTuber and Strictly contestant George Clarke laughed off claims he’s a nepo baby because his dad, Sean Clarke, is the managing director of Aardman Animations.
He tells me, “It’s been a running joke in the YouTube world for a bit where they (my fans) found out what my dad does and were like, ‘Oh, he’s a nepo baby’. But I think it’s very sarcastic, matey jokey.”
He added: “The fact that my dad works at a company has absolutely has no sort of bearing on what I do. I sit in my room and sort of film a video from three inches away from my face.”
Pro dancer Warr said: “It was definitely a bit to get for me to get into the good graces of his YouTube fan base… It’s fun to still tease him.”
Backstage is very different to glossy Strictly
On-screen Strictly is incredibly polished with its glamorous costumes, sequins and glitter. Behind the scenes, Alex Kingston admitted it’s more like Blue Peter.
The Doctor Who star tells me: “Getting to the studio on a Friday and a Saturday, it’s just this sort of fantastic manic chaos that I rather love. At first, it terrified me, but now I’m getting into the flow of it. I’m rather enjoying it.
“There’s tinsel and flouncy dresses being whizzed up and down corridors. What’s projected on the television screen is very different to what it’s like backstage. Behind the scenes, I feel it’s a little bit Blue Peter.
“Lots of things being kind of suddenly fashioned out of sealing wax and glitter and sequins. It’s really the creativity that goes on… It is quite extraordinary. Being in the world of dancers, I realise, is one of the loveliest worlds to be in because everybody’s so warm and friendly and huggy, and they don’t mind what you look like.
“Look at me, I’ve got space buns at the moment. Nobody bats an eyelid, and it’s just so refreshing. That people can just be whoever they want to be, and nobody even notices. I love it. I find it very, very freeing.”
The Strictly schedule and training techniques
The Strictly rehearsals are long and gruelling. Mondays and Tuesdays are the hardest days because that’s when the celebrities have to get to grips with the new dance and moves. Then, throughout the rest of the week, the celebrities and pros must juggle filming the VTs [prerecorded video segments] with improving their dance techniques..
The pro dancers adapt their techniques to suit the celebrities. Ahead of leaving the competition in Halloween week, Vito Coppola revealed he had been using visual cues while teaching Ellie Goldstein — who has Down syndrome — to dance.
He said, “Well, you are a visual learner, so I don’t use a lot of imagination and pictures.”
Model Goldstein said she loved the “creative” approach he took to teaching her the dances.
He added: “Lots of creativity. We have a whiteboard. We have our silhouettes, judges. There are lots of colour references, lots of animals.”
Strictly Come Dancing continues at 6.25pm on Saturday on BBC One and BBC iPlayer.