Former Strictly Come Dancing contestant Toyah Wilcox has claimed she turned down two different professional partners before settling on Neil Jones.
Toyah and Neil were the second pairing of this year’s Strictly to be sent home by the judging panel, after failing to impress with their early routines.
In a new interview with the Daily Mail, Toyah claimed that she wasn’t actually even supposed to have been paired with Neil at all, but put her foot down with the BBC after their first two picks.
“I did my audition with Vito [Coppola], who is gorgeous and very energetic,” the punk singer explained. “He loved me immediately and said, ‘this is the one, this is the one’ – and I’m very grateful for that but it was still nerve-wracking.”
However, despite the reigning Strictly champ’s enthusiasm, Toyah said she told producers she “did not want to dance with someone when there was a 40-year age discrepancy”.
“I would have hated to do an intimate dance with someone that young,” she revealed. “I said I really want to be age-appropriate and dance with someone who is right for my physicality.”
Toyah went on to say she was then asked if she wanted to dance with Nikita Kuzmin, to which she apparently replied: “Look, it’s going to look so wrong.”
“I trusted Neil, he has experience and has the same mental experiences as me,” she added.
“Sarah Hadland and I said, ‘we don’t want young people’s heads anywhere near our crotches and I don’t want my head anywhere near their crotches’.
“I said, please keep this age appropriate and the team respected that. Nikita is gorgeous but I didn’t want him to be frustrated performing with an old woman.”
HuffPost UK has contacted the BBC for comment.
For those who are curious, Toyah is 66, and her dancer partner Neil, the oldest of Strictly’s male pros, is 42.
Vito and Nikita, meanwhile, are 32 and 26, respectively, while Sarah Hadland – with whom the Italian dancer was eventually coupled up – is 53.
Nikita was paired up with Olympian Sam Quek this year, finishing in 10th place overall. He’ll dance with EastEnders star Tamzin Outhwaite in this year’s Christmas special.
Meanwhile, Miranda actor Sarah and her professional partner Vito are one of only two couples left in the competition who’ve not yet landed in the bottom two.
Sarah will go head-to-head with comedian Chris McCausland, former Love Island finalist Tasha Ghouri and JLS singer JB Gill in this year’s Strictly live final, which will air on Saturday night on BBC One.
