Strictly Come Dancing fans have been left devastated after speculating that Dianne Buswell will leave the show at the end of this series.
The Australian dancer, who is paired with comedian Chris McCausland, joined the show in 2017. Although the duo are favourites to win the coveted Glitterball trophy, fans are not celebrating the possible victory as they suspect that winning the season could be an ideal opportunity for Dianne to end her career on a high.
Taking to social media, one fan wrote: “I would say Dianne might leave this year, especially if she wins.” Another said: “Now that you’ve said it, it does seem likely that this could be Dianne’s last hurrah. Not only because of her massively popular partnership with Chris but also because she’s been getting a lot of prominent roles in the pro numbers.”
Another factor that may indicate Dianne’s imminent departure from the show are her plans to go on tour with her fellow pro dancer Vito Coppola.
Sharing the news of her upcoming shows, Dianne told fans: “We are so, so excited to finally introduce you all to our brand new show DIANNE & VITO ‘Red Hot and Ready’ presented by Burn the Floor. We’ve been working on this project for such a long time and we cannot wait to share this special show with the whole of the UK in 2025!”
Fans rushed to secure tickets, although some pointed out that the 27-date tour does not include any venues in Scotland or Ireland. One disappointed fan said: “So exciting!! However it can’t really be considered a uk tour without a Scotland date.”
Dianne further implied her plans to take a step back from the show’s gruelling schedule when she revealed she had battled an eating disorder that left her exhausted by the mental tolls of maintaining a strict diet as part of her dancing career.
Appearing on This Morning in March, she confessed to presenters Josie Gibson and Craig Doyle that “obsessing” about food and calories had dominated her life. She said: “You wake up in the morning, and the first thing you think of is, what am I going to eat? How many calories are going to be in that? How much do I need to exercise to burn off those calories?.”
The dancer added: “It literally is like a planned thing in your mind that doesn’t go away. And that’s when you start to go, ‘Oh, this is a problem because I’m not thinking of anything else.” Dianne claimed one of the contributing factors in developing an eating disorder was being a dancer from a young age, as she felt under pressure to maintain a low weight.
She said: “I think it comes from when I was quite a young girl. And obviously growing up in the dance world, you’re taught to look a certain way and you see all these other beautiful girls dancing, and you kind of want to look like that and want to be winning like they are. And they look a certain way so I feel like I should look that way. So I think it was it was something from a really young age.”
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