{"id":2038893,"date":"2025-09-21T12:12:00","date_gmt":"2025-09-21T12:12:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2038893"},"modified":"2025-09-21T12:12:00","modified_gmt":"2025-09-21T12:12:00","slug":"curtain-rises-on-strictly-2025-as-new-couples-revealed-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/curtain-rises-on-strictly-2025-as-new-couples-revealed-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Curtain rises on Strictly 2025 as new couples revealed"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Strictly Come Dancing has returned for its 21st season, with the new parings of celebrities and dancers revealed. <\/p>\n

Apprentice star Thomas Skinner – who has been under the spotlight since his participation in the show was announced – will dance with professional Amy Dowden, who missed the 2023 season after a cancer diagnosis. <\/p>\n

Among the other pairings were Reality TV star Vicky Pattison with professional dancer Kai Widdrington; actress Alex Kingston with Johannes Radebe, and EastEnders actor Balvinder Sopal with Julian Caillon.<\/p>\n

The race is now on for the Glitterball trophy, building up to the grand final on 20 December.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Saturday’s launch show also saw performances from last year’s winners Chris McCausland and Dianne Buswell, as well as singer Jessie J – returning to the spotlight with her new single Living My Best Life. <\/p>\n

McCausland and Buswell recreated their waltz to You’ll Never Walk Alone, their performance of which was voted the most memorable moment at the 2025 Baftas. <\/p>\n

Speaking about his victory in 2024, McCausland said it was “the most proud I’ve ever been of anything in my life”. <\/p>\n

The performance by Jessie J marked a milestone in her turn to the spotlight, just months after she revealed she had been diagnosed with breast cancer. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Ahead of the show she shared a picture of herself with professional Amy Dowden, who had to step away from Strictly after receiving her own cancer diagnosis. <\/p>\n

Taking to the stage, she asked the audience: “Strictly, are you ready to dance?”<\/p>\n

Among one of the tweaks to this year programme, for the first time, there will be no phone voting – with it moving to a fully online model. <\/p>\n

Announcing the change, the BBC said the premium-rate phone voting “is now an outdated system and also expensive to run”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Perhaps the contestant about which the most has been written, the businessman and personality Thomas Skinner<\/b> has been paired with Amy Dowden<\/b>. <\/p>\n

Ahead of the show he was involved in an incident which saw him leave a news conference early, and pick up a journalist’s phone – something which he apologised for<\/a>. <\/p>\n

The Apprentice star Skinner said he was “over the moon” to be partnered with Dowden and added: “I hope you can teach me a few moves because I’m useless at the minute.”<\/p>\n

Vicky Pattison<\/b> said she was “thrilled” to be paired with Kai Widdrington.<\/b><\/p>\n

Doctor Who actress Alex Kingston<\/b> was revealed to be the partner of Johannes Radebe<\/b>, who she described as her “number one”.<\/p>\n

EastEnders star Balvinder Sopal <\/b>said being on Strictly was a “dream come true” before it was revealed she had been partnered with Australian dancer Julian Caillon<\/b>.<\/p>\n

Former England rugby union captain Chris Robshaw <\/b>said he watched clips of Nadiya Bychkova <\/b>after he learned they would be dance partners.<\/p>\n

Model Ellie Goldstein<\/b>, who is the first person with Down’s syndrome to compete on the main series of Strictly, was revealed to be partnered with Vito Coppola – <\/b>with the pair showing off a “secret handshake” during the launch show. <\/p>\n

Internet star George Clarke <\/b>was paired with US dancer Alexis Warr <\/b>who said she wanted Clarke to “embody this show” and “enjoy it”.<\/p>\n

Gladiators star Harry Aikines-Aryeetey <\/b>was revealed to be partnered with Karen Hauer<\/b>, who said their first dance would be a cha cha cha to Salt-N-Pepa’s Push It.<\/p>\n

Love Island winner Dani Dyer-Bowen <\/b>said she was “honestly so happy” after it was revealed she would be dancing with Nikita Kuzmin<\/b>.<\/p>\n

Former footballer Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink <\/b>looked pleased when he met his dance partner Lauren Oakley<\/b> for the first time.<\/p>\n

Former Lioness Karen Carney <\/b>was revealed to be partnered with Carlos Gu <\/b>on the show.<\/p>\n

Singer and drag performer La Voix<\/b> joked “that’s the one I said I didn’t want” when they met their dance partner Aljaz Skorjanec <\/b>for the first time.<\/p>\n

Former Emmerdale actor Lewis Cope <\/b>said he was “over the moon” to be paired with professional dance Katya Jones<\/b>.<\/p>\n

ITV entertainment reporter Ross King<\/b> told his dance partner Jowita Przystal<\/b> “you drew the short straw” when it was revealed they would be dancing together on Saturday.<\/p>\n

Neighbours actor Stefan Dennis <\/b>was partnered with Dianne Buswell<\/b>, who referred to their partnership as the “Aussie dream team”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.bbc.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Strictly Come Dancing has returned for its 21st season, with the new parings of celebrities and dancers revealed. Apprentice star Thomas Skinner – who has been under the spotlight since his participation in the show was announced – will dance with professional Amy Dowden, who missed the 2023 season after a cancer diagnosis. Among the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2038895,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25173],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2038893","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artists"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Curtain-rises-on-Strictly-2025-as-new-couples-revealed.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2038893","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2038893"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2038893\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2038895"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2038893"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2038893"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2038893"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}