Rose Ayling-Ellis Lands Loose Women Role For Special Deaf Awareness Week Episode

The Strictly Come Dancing champion will be joining the panel for an episode next month.

Rose Ayling-Ellis is set to join Loose Women as a guest panellist to mark Deaf Awareness Week.

The Strictly Come Dancing winner, who is deaf, will appear on a special episode on 3 May.

Former EastEnders star Rose will join Nadia Sawalha and Jane Moore on the panel of the ITV daytime show alongside Kaye Adams, who has previously shared her own hearing loss journey.

The show’s studio audience will be made up of members of the deaf community, along with family, friends and BSL signers, with captions available to the studio audience to make the live show accessible.

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Rose Ayling-Ellis on Loose Women
ITV

Loose Women bosses have worked alongside charities Royal National Institute for Deaf People, Sign Health and The Deaf Collective on the special episode. 

During the show, ITV has said Loose Women viewers will be able to watch live on ITV1, where subtitles will be available, as well as on streaming service ITVX, which will be showing a fully accessible version with subtitles and an in-vision signer.

Rose has previously spoken candidly about her experiences as a deaf person, both in her personal life and as part of the entertainment industry, and campaigned to have British Sign Language (BSL) become a legally recognised language in England, Wales and Scotland.

After becoming the first deaf contestant to win Strictly in 2021 with professional partner Giovanni Pernice, Rose stepped down from her role as Frankie Lewis in EastEnders. 

Most recently, she has been wowing critics and audiences in a West End production of Shakespeare’s As You Like It, and reunited on screen with Giovanni in his and fellow Strictly star Anton Du Beke’s Italian travel show for the BBC. 

The Loose Women Deaf Awareness Week special airs on Wednesday 3 May at 12.30pm on ITV1 and ITVX.