{"id":624277,"date":"2026-09-14T10:30:13","date_gmt":"2026-09-14T10:30:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/624277\/"},"modified":"2026-09-14T10:30:13","modified_gmt":"2026-09-14T10:30:13","slug":"john-nellis-from-youtube-sensation-to-strictly-come-dancing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/624277\/","title":{"rendered":"John Nellis: From YouTube sensation to Strictly Come Dancing"},"content":{"rendered":"

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John Nellis is best known for meeting some of the world\u2019s biggest footballers on his hugely popular YouTube<\/a> channel \u2013 but the content creator is swapping sports for sequins as he takes part in this year\u2019s Strictly Come Dancing<\/a>. <\/p>\n

The 33-year-old social media star is among the famous faces learning their Charlestons from their Rumbas<\/a>, joining the likes of former Love Islander Dani Dyer, Gavin & Stacey actor Melanie Walters and Australian singer Delta Goodrem. <\/p>\n

This will be the first series with Emma Willis, Josh Widdicombe and former Strictly professional Johannes Radebe at the helm<\/a>, following the departure of longtime hosts Tess Daly and Claudia Winkleman. <\/p>\n

Hailing from Newcastle, County Down, Nellis isn\u2019t just a newbie to the world of dance, but a relative newcomer to all things showbiz too. <\/p>\n

Until just four years ago, the Irish star worked as an air traffic controller. With most planes grounded amid the pandemic, Nellis threw himself into his content creation hobby, building a modest audience online with his football-centric videos. In 2022, he took a huge gamble \u2013 quitting his job and making content creation his full-time profession even though he had just 7,431 subscribers on YouTube. <\/p>\n

\"NellisNellis has made a name for himself in the streaming world (BBC)<\/p>\n

“When I look back, I label myself as delusional,\u201d he later admitted to BBC Northern Ireland. \u201cI don’t know how any channel with as few subscribers as I had, in their right mind, would quit the job I had.\u201d <\/p>\n

Thankfully, the leap of faith paid off. Nellis has won over millions of fans with fun-filled videos including a popular \u201c100 hours to meet\u2026\u201d series, where he tracks down football stars, and feel-good shorts that see random members of the public given tickets to huge games. <\/p>\n

His channel provides an antidote to typical sports interviews, and stars from the world of football love taking part too, with the likes of England superstar Jude Bellingham, Norway\u2019s Erling Haaland and French legend Zinedine Zidane all featuring in videos. <\/p>\n

Nellis now has a whopping 16 million subscribers on YouTube and 2.6 million followers on TikTok, who named him Sports Creator of the Year at their annual awards bash in 2024. So understandably, his production operation is a lot bigger and slicker than in the early days. <\/p>\n

\u201cThree of us work full-time,\u201d he told Belfast publication NewsLetter. “The ideation and structuring of what we hope to shoot takes day’s work for three people and then shooting it takes at least a full day, flying over takes a day, but editing takes weeks. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere’s constant chopping and changing and we send it off to strategists who talk through every second of the video and what can be added.\u201d <\/p>\n

\"\"(Getty)<\/p>\n

As a sweet reminder of how far he\u2019s come, Nellis now has the number 7,431 tattooed on his arm. Away from the football, Nellis married his wife Shannon in 2025 and the couple have one son. <\/p>\n

How does he think he\u2019ll fare in the ballroom? Well, the fact he\u2019s on the show will need to sink in. After signing up, Nellis said: \u201cI\u2019m still in disbelief that I\u2019ve been selected for Strictly and, if I\u2019m honest, I\u2019m a little nervous as I\u2019ve never danced before!<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s such an incredible opportunity, and I\u2019m going to throw myself into every moment. I can\u2019t wait to meet everyone, learn a new skill and, hopefully, be much better at family parties by the end of it!\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Your support helps us to tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":624278,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[17949,17950,321,31724,5040,93,1424,61,60,265157,16855,266,6116,282,1577,17953,14181],"class_list":["post-624277","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-arts-culture-and-entertainment","tag-awards-ceremony","tag-celebrities","tag-color-image","tag-england","tag-entertainment","tag-fashion","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-john-nellis","tag-london-england","tag-photography","tag-tiktok","tag-tv","tag-uk","tag-vertical","tag-winning"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/624277","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=624277"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/624277\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/624278"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=624277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=624277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=624277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}