'Strictly Come Dancing' Winner Joe McFadden Admits Career 'Hasn't Been Impacted' Like He Hoped

"Maybe it’s one of those slow-burners."

Reigning ‘Strictly Come Dancing’ champion Joe McFadden has admitted his acting career hasn’t quite taken off in the way he expected it to after winning the show.

Best known for his role in ‘Holby City’, Joe triumphed in last year’s ‘Strictly’ final, with the help of his professional partner Katya Jones.

However, having bowed out of the BBC medical drama in 2017, Joe has revealed that he hasn’t exactly been flooded with offers like he might have hoped.

Joe McFadden
Joe McFadden
Mike Marsland via Getty Images

He told the BBC: “Admittedly, Strictly didn’t have the massive impact on my career that I thought it might.

“Maybe it’s one of those slow-burners. And in five years’ time, I’ll see it’s made a difference. But then, dancing on an entertainment show is so far removed from acting, why should it have had a massive effect?”

Joe did note that there have been a few offers of acting work in the last year, though he claimed they “have not been right” for him.

During the interview, Joe also successfully dodged a question about the story that has dogged this year’s series of ‘Strictly’, namely his former right-hand woman Katya’s kiss with her most recent celebrity dance partner, Seann Walsh.

Katya and Joe at an event in March
Katya and Joe at an event in March
Dave J Hogan via Getty Images

“I don’t want to add fuel to the fire or get embroiled in it,” Joe said. “It’s their lives and it’s really none of my business. If you condone it you’re condemned and if you’re judgmental you’re condemned. There’s no way of winning.

“Katya does a great job. It’s a shame that has been overshadowed. But so much of what is reported about the dance partners is total nonsense.

“The press is waiting for you slip up, put a foot wrong. Luckily I’m not one for doing anything outrageous. But Strictly is the biggest show on TV. People get so involved in it and certain kinds of papers know that any headline with Strictly in the title will get lots of readers.”

Joe broke from tradition earlier this year, when he and Katya didn’t perform in the most recent launch show to perform their winner’s dance.

While it was suggested in the media this was down to a fall-out behind the scenes, Joe was quick to set the record straight, insisting he was simply at a friend’s wedding in Glasgow when filming was taking place.

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