Strictly Come Dancing professionals’ pay is revealed as row breaks out among the cast over celebrity partners

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Strictly Come Dancing is experiencing some drama behind the scenes, with the professional dancers sharing their opinions about how the celebrities have been paired up.

Nancy Xu and Michelle Tsiakkas publicly expressed their frustration about not being paired with celebrity contestants for the upcoming 2025 season, which begins live performances this Saturday.

Every year, Strictly Come Dancing doesn’t use all of its professional dancers. This year, along with Nancy and Michelle, Luba Mushtuk and Neil Jones aren’t participating.

Gorka Marquez, a professional dancer on the show since 2016, announced he won’t be competing this season. He’s busy working as a judge on the Spanish version of ‘Strictly’ while also continuing his role as a dancer in the UK.

As a lifestyle expert, I’m thrilled to share that the dancers will be much more visible this season! They’ll have bigger parts in the professional routines, appear frequently on ‘It Takes Two,’ and have a significantly better chance of being paired with a celebrity for the special Christmas show. It’s a fantastic opportunity for them to really shine.

Even though the professional dancers have had smaller parts on the show recently, they still earn between £35,000 and £50,000 for the entire series, no matter if they’re paired with a celebrity or not.

The dancers can potentially earn an additional £35,000 by performing on the Strictly live tour after the show ends.

As a lifestyle expert, I’m hearing that all the celebrity contestants on the show are receiving the same payment, regardless of how long they last. It starts at a minimum of £25,000 – which is pretty good, even if they’re voted off in the very first week! It’s a nice safety net, and shows they’re valued for simply taking part.

As a huge fan, I’m so excited for the contestants! If they manage to stick it out until week four, they get a fantastic £40,000 bonus. And if they then go on to compete in the Blackpool special *and* the quarter final, they’ll earn another £60,000 – it’s amazing how much is on the line!

The semi-finalists reportedly bank £75,000 and the winner is said to get a massive £100,000.

Celebrities will train as many as 10 hours a day, six days a week, alongside their professional dance partners, before performing live on BBC One each Saturday.

The professional dance partners will spend a lot of time creating their routines.

For 23 seasons, the way professional dancers are paired with celebrities on the show has stayed pretty much the same.

Celebrities are matched with their professional partners based on chemistry, determined through a quick, speed-dating-like activity.

Speed dancing is one of the initial run-throughs each summer, preparing for the show that begins in mid-September.

Throughout the busy day, the celebrities quickly dance and talk with each professional dancer while the show’s crew observes, assessing how well each potential couple connects.

Producers also need to consider how tall the dancers and celebrities are when pairing them up. They then decide who dances with whom.

ITV’s Ross King, a contestant on the upcoming 2025 series, shared his experience, describing it as feeling like his first day of school. He said everyone was very friendly and that a segment called ‘speed dancing,’ where all the male contestants dance in a circle, was particularly amusing.

All the professional female dancers start around the perimeter. Then there’s a brief introductory dance where they pair up. They rotate partners, and the dance continues… It’s a way to see which dancers have good rapport and work well together – a kind of compatibility test.

Angela Rippon, a celebrity contestant on the 2024 show, explained that the instructors played eight counts of a cha-cha. Everyone then danced those eight counts with the person directly in front of them, before rotating to a new partner.

After that round, we quickly moved on to the next, and it felt like a fast-paced series of short interactions. Everyone got a chance to play the music and dance with each other a few times – we each had three dances with different people.

There’s a belief that celebrities who’ve been on the Strictly Christmas specials are intentionally paired with a different professional dancer than the one they danced with before, for that one-time performance.

Sources say professional dancer Nancy Xu was upset to learn that Harry Aikines-Aryeetey, her partner in the recent Christmas special, will be dancing with Karen Hauer in the 2025 series.

An insider told the Sun that Nancy is concerned that there are forces working against her.

According to a source, Nancy is frustrated about being left out of the lineup again, especially considering how well she and Harry performed together during the recent Christmas series.

This isn’t the first time this has occurred, and she believes there might be an underlying problem she doesn’t yet understand.

As a lifestyle expert, I’ve been following the show closely, and it was fantastic seeing her team up with Jamie Borthwick for the 2023 Christmas special – they really delivered and took home the win! Then, when Jamie became a regular cast member last year, the producers smartly paired him with Michelle Tsiakkas, creating another dynamic duo.

I’ve been following Nancy’s journey closely, and apparently she gets that it wouldn’t be fair to keep pairing her with the same dancer – they’d have a clear edge. But she’s really puzzled about why she isn’t being matched with a celebrity partner, and honestly, so am I! It’s frustrating to watch her work so hard and not get that opportunity.

Nancy, Michelle, and Neil Jones have all expressed their support for the show, even though they’ve shared some concerns. Neil, who didn’t have a dance partner in 2022 or 2023, joked about the situation, saying he enjoys being involved with Strictly Come Dancing regardless of whether he’s partnered up or not.

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2025-09-25 13:20