Katya Jones is amongst the rumoured Strictly Come Dancing professionals potentially facing the chop. There’s buzz that Neil Jones, Gorka Marquez, and Katya might all be exiting the show, with Johannes Radebe also possibly departing by choice this year.
It’s been suggested Johannes may join a major stage production which could see him commit for several months, thus ruling him out of Strictly’s upcoming 2025 series. A recent source mentioned: “The review of the line-up has always been about making a fresh start, and that was always going to be affected by which dancers performed well this series.
“Of the five names in the mix almost all of them went out in the first half of the series, which is very much seen as a landmark point for Strictly. It couldn’t have come at a worse time for them, because Strictly bosses feel they need to make some major changes, even if that means big names leaving.”
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Meanwhile, Katya has opened up about her hopes to continue on the hit BBC show, telling The Mirror: “Am I hoping to be back? Well this year would be my 10th on Strictly so I am hoping for a round number.”
Her statement comes following an incident with dancing partner Wynne Evans that caught viewers’ attention last series, wherein they made a ‘silly joke’ after speculation arose over Katya seeming uncomfortable as she moved Wynne’s hand from her waist during a live segment.
Speaking on It Takes Two, she clarified: “I just want to get something out of the way that I feel overshadowed our performance for absolutely no reason. Quite frankly I can’t bear sitting here watching this man being portrayed as someone he is not. And in fact it couldn’t be further away from the truth, so I have to make this absolutely clear, that this whole incident with the hand and the high-five on Saturday night, it was an inside joke between Wynne and I. Was it a silly joke? Yes. Was it a bad joke? Yes.”, reports the Mirror.
In a separate interview, Wynne added: “I’m absolutely heartbroken by the things that have been written about me in the last day. It’s not nice to live in that time, but basically Katya and I are really, really close and we’re really good friends, and on Saturday we made a stupid joke. It was a stupid joke that went wrong, OK? We thought it was funny. It wasn’t funny. It has been totally misinterpreted.”