Johannes Radebe has lifted the lid on what life is really like as a Strictly Come Dancing professional, admitting there are more “rivalries” at play behind the scenes than they let on.
On Friday night, the 2021 finalist was a guest on Graham Norton’s BBC talk show, during which the host suggested “in terms of those rivalries and stuff it must be vicious”.
“Yes, the pros are vicious. Not the celebrities,” Johannes revealed. “The celebrities just want to dance. No, but it’s the professionals.”
Johannes then added there were “absolutely” rivalries between the pros when it came to which celebrity partner they’d end up paired with each year.
He explained: “You want somebody that can move and walk in heels, you know. That’s the first thing.
“And we check, we suss the situation out as they walk into the room, and we go on Instagram and check who they are.”
“That does make me laugh,” Graham then joked. “Because so many of the dancers aren’t from this country, so how the fuck are you going to know who they are? We barely know who they are!”
Johannes then conceded: “No, but it’s true!”
Former Strictly pro Kevin Clifton previously shared that there can be “tension” between the show’s team of dancers, but claimed this mostly came into play when new additions were welcomed into the fold.
Kevin told the Real Life Sports Show podcast last year: “If I’m honest, when I first joined there were a couple of them that had sort of been there a few years, that were probably on their last year or two... they could be a bit angsty in the room.
“[They especially] didn’t like it if us younger... the likes of me and Aljaž [Škorjanec] coming in, you know, like if us young whipper-snappers were getting put at the front [in group routines] or something...”
When host Sam Adams suggested “egos” were coming into play, Kevin agreed: “Yeah, a couple of egos in there, but then they left and it sort of quietened down.”
HuffPost UK recently caught up with Johannes about all things Strictly, with the dancer admitting he was “gutted” to have made it as far as last year’s final without lifting the Glitterball trophy.
“Oh, a lot of me was gutted, babe!” he said. “I’m not going to hide that – excuse me, I’m in a competition. I wanted to lift that Glitterball!
“John [Whaite, his celebrity partner] was like ‘each and everyone who has made it this far in the competition is a worthy winner, regardless of who lifts the Glitterball’ – and I hear where he’s coming from. When I looked around and I saw [winning couple Rose Ayling-Ellis and Giovanni Pernice] dance, it was like, ‘yeah, winning doesn’t matter, it really doesn’t’.”
“But I was hoping that it would be us, I really was,” he added. “I was dying for that moment to happen… Any other year, I think John and I would have won, but Rose, really – it was just a beautiful moment wasn’t it?”