Bosh. If Strictly bosses were hoping for a smoother ride after last year’s controversy-hit series, it appears they’re already in trouble. BBC One’s shiny floor show will be back in a matter of weeks and the lineup announcement has naturally sparked the usual debate over the calibre of stars set to appear. Love Island’s Dani Dyer and trailblazing model Ellie Goldstein may be among the highlights, but this year, there’s one booking that’s already dominating conversation: Thomas Skinner.
If you don’t know who he is then congratulations for quitting Twitter (or X, depending on when you pulled the plug), and ditching The Apprentice before the show became a monotonous farce. Skinner first strode onto our screens in the 2019 series, and by the time he was fired by Lord Sugar in week nine, he’d proved to be reality TV gold with his confident, cheeky persona and his pathological tendency to say “bosh” after every minor achievement.
Afterwards, he popped up on TV a few more times with bookings including 8 Out of 10 Cats and Celebrity MasterChef, while also returning to family life and his businesses – albeit with a significantly bigger social media following.
It’s on X, Instagram and TikTok that Skinner has really made a name for himself in recent years, at first by going viral with motivational morning messages, often filmed in his much-loved Dino’s Cafe in east London as he eats a steak pie and chips for breakfast.
But it’s social media that has also proven, critics would argue, to be his undoing. Well, X to be specific. As Elon Musk’s reign has brought far-right content and conspiracy theories thundering onto everyone’s timelines, Skinner’s content has taken a political turn. He’s praised Donald Trump as “brilliant”, declared London unsafe and weighed in on migrant hotels. Savvy as ever, he monetised his X account in July and has said he’s donating any money made to a local children’s charity.
To his fans, Skinner is a straight-talking, hard-grafting Cockney geezer; an everyman with the gift of the gab; a patriot who isn’t happy with the way his country is being run. To his critics, he’s a populist activist with a criminal conviction; a privately educated salesman masquerading as a regular Joe; a potential Reform candidate who spouts misinformation with the help of Chat GPT.
In a twist that was unexpected – but nowhere near as absurd as it would have been in the pre-Maga era – Skinner’s posts, and his defiance in the face of a backlash, culminated in him receiving support online from US vice-president JD Vance. Skinner then created even more headlines when he met up with the Vance family, who are holidaying in the UK, earlier this week.
Just days later, he was confirmed as a contestant for Strictly. And while the bookers for many shows would be delighted to sign someone who is already proving newsworthy and controversial, it’s a decidedly un-Strictly move.
ITV has sent many divisive characters into the I’m a Celebrity jungle (most recently Nigel Farage), and Celebrity Big Brother bosses never missed the opportunity to book an outspoken D-lister. But Strictly? The show’s policy has usually leant more towards “the less controversial, the better”. For years, bosses even allegedly banned reality stars, and on the rare occasion one has made it into the ballroom, mention of their Love Island or Towie past has been kept to a minimum. It’s worth noting that this year, it’s Skinner and three others who found their fame on reality TV: Dyer, Geordie Shore’s Vicky Pattison and RuPaul’s Drag Race UK contestant La Voix.
The announcement that Skinner is taking part has – much like his X posts – sparked an onslaught of criticism. Among the commentators is Narinder Kaur, a TV personality who says she was deemed “too controversial” to be on Strictly. While she has criticised Skinner, Kaur’s issue also seems to be with the BBC itself, which she claimed “only hire[s] quiet brown and Black women that fit in a box”.
So what will Skinner’s signing mean for the series? Mainly, an early headache for the PR team. Given Strictly’s decades-long (and often failed) bid to ignore scandal, it’s hard to imagine that bookers set out to intentionally sign someone so divisive – especially after the 2024 series, which saw two pros exit amid serious allegations before it had even begun, the Wynne Evans “hand-gate” incident, and weeks of furore over Pete Wicks outlasting his far more skilled rivals. It feels more likely that the decision was made a decent amount of time before Skinner’s recent leap from occasional Trump advocate to Vance’s BBQ buddy.
Regardless of when the ink dried on Skinner’s contract, Strictly is now waltzing into another series with a controversy on its hands. And fans might be left wondering, whatever happened to the wholesome Saturday night show that was all about the dancing?
