Claudia Winkleman has been a part of the Strictly Come Dancing family for 21 years, but earlier today, she announced that she would be stepping away from the show
Strictly Come Dancing’s Claudia Winkleman previously offered a brutally honest reflection on her journey with the beloved BBC programme, ahead of announcing her departure from the show earlier today.
The presenter first appeared on Strictly’s spin-off series It Takes Two back in 2004, before moving on to co-present the Sunday results programme alongside Tess Daly.
She then stepped up to join Tess on Saturday evenings from 2014 onwards, following the late Sir Bruce Forsyth’s decision to leave the series.
During an appearance on the Dish podcast with Nick Grimshaw and Angela Hartnett last year, she reflected fondly on her Strictly experience, especially due to the series being “completely run by women”.
The star admitted: “What I love about Strictly, and this is going to make everyone feel nauseous, but it is true life, is that everybody who works there has worked there for years, so we are a proper gang and it is a show, no offence, completely run by women.”
She went on to discuss how “we’ve all been through all kinds of things together”, continuing: “So the director, BAFTA award-winning woman, the exec producer is a woman, our commissioning editor is a woman, there are men there and they are obviously excellent, but it is… and we’ve all been through all kinds of things together, whether births, or meeting someone, or breaking up with someone. So Strictly feels, I know it’s a show on the telly, but it does feel like family.”
Beyond Strictly, Claudia has established herself as a familiar face on British television through her work on programmes including Channel 4’s The Piano and BBC’s The Great British Sewing Bee.
Her most recent venture has seen her fronting the hugely successful BBC game show The Traitors, with the first series of the celebrity version launching in recent weeks.
Yet today, both Claudia and Tess left Strictly viewers stunned as they announced their departure from the programme after a remarkable 15-year partnership.
In a shared Instagram video breaking the news, Tess and Claudia wrote: “We have loved working as a duo and hosting Strictly has been an absolute dream. We were always going to leave together and now feels like the right time.
“We will have the greatest rest of this amazing series and we just want to say an enormous thank you to the BBC and to every single person who works on the show.”
They continued: “They’re the most brilliant team and we’ll miss them every day. We will cry when we say the last ‘keep dancing’ but we will continue to say it to each other. Just possibly in tracksuit bottoms at home while holding some pizza.”
Strictly Come Dancing is set to return on Saturday evening (25 October) at 6.25 p.m. on BBC One.