{"id":2272758,"date":"2026-02-08T17:37:53","date_gmt":"2026-02-08T17:37:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2272758"},"modified":"2026-02-08T17:37:53","modified_gmt":"2026-02-08T17:37:53","slug":"zoe-ball-and-emma-willis-battling-it-out-to-host-strictly-come-dancing-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/zoe-ball-and-emma-willis-battling-it-out-to-host-strictly-come-dancing-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Zoe Ball and Emma Willis ‘battling it out to host Strictly Come Dancing’"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Claudia and Tess quit the show after the last series<\/h2>\n
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10:46, 08 Feb 2026<\/span>Updated 11:04, 08 Feb 2026<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"The<\/div>\n

The Strictly glitterball(Image: PA)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Zoe Ball and Emma Willis are reportedly in a “straight shoot-out” to host Strictly Come Dancing<\/a> alongside a “female stand-up comedian”.<\/p>\n

It has been claimed that the BBC<\/a> wants to continue with an all-female presenting team, following the success of Tess Daly, 56, and 54 year old Claudia Winkleman<\/a> – who quit the Latin and Ballroom dance competition at the end of the 2025 series.<\/p>\n

A source told The Sun on Sunday newspaper: “It’s a straight shoot-out between Zoe, who is the front-runner, and Emma. Only one will get it, not both.<\/p>\n

“The senior execs want a traditional presenter working alongside a more left-field person, a female stand-up comedian.<\/p>\n

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\"TV<\/div>\n

TV presenter Zoe Ball(Image: BANG Showbiz)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

“It’s felt the humour Claudia brought to the show, particularly in her ‘Claudatorium’, needs to carry on.”<\/p>\n

Zoe, 55, quit her BBC Radio 2 Saturday show in December 2025, which caused speculation that she could be hosting Strictly Come Dancing later this year.<\/p>\n

The star – who replaced Claudia in fronting the Strictly Come Dancing spin-off show It Takes Two from 2011 until 2021, and also hosted the live tour in 2011 and 2015 – recently admitted she would “love” to take Tess or Claudia’s job.<\/p>\n

In January, Zoe – who finished third on Strictly Come Dancing in 2005 with her 55-year-old professional dance partner, Ian Waite – told The Sunday Times’ Style Magazine: “Obviously, there’s a part of me that would love to do it. But I will still be watching, whoever hosts.”<\/p>\n

However, her 87-year-old dad, TV personality Johnny Ball<\/a> – who, with his 45-year-old professional dance partner, Iveta Lukosiute, finished last in the Latin and Ballroom dance competition in 2012 – said she was in the running to host Strictly Come Dancing.<\/p>\n

And he claimed that a decision would be made in the spring.<\/p>\n

In December 2025, Johnny told The Express: “People are coming to her, but it’s too early to say. I think she would love it, I think she would love the job because she took over from Claudia on It Takes Two, and if anything, she did a better job than Claudia.”<\/p>\n

Like Zoe, Emma, 49, has extensive TV presenting experience, having hosted the likes of Celebrity Big Brother<\/a> and Love is Blind: UK.<\/p>\n

A BBC spokesperson said plans for the 2026 series of Strictly Come Dancing will be announced “in due course”.<\/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.bristolpost.co.uk \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Claudia and Tess quit the show after the last series 10:46, 08 Feb 2026Updated 11:04, 08 Feb 2026 The Strictly glitterball(Image: PA) Zoe Ball and Emma Willis are reportedly in a “straight shoot-out” to host Strictly Come Dancing alongside a “female stand-up comedian”. It has been claimed that the BBC wants to continue with an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2272759,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25173],"tags":[25507,346635,439979,30156],"class_list":["post-2272758","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artists","tag-bbc","tag-celebrity-big-brother","tag-johnny-ball","tag-strictly-come-dancing"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Zoe-Ball-and-Emma-Willis-battling-it-out-to-host.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2272758","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=2272758"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2272758\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2272761,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2272758\/revisions\/2272761"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2272759"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2272758"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2272758"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2272758"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}