{"id":594507,"date":"2026-05-20T15:12:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-20T15:12:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/594507\/"},"modified":"2026-05-20T15:12:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-20T15:12:08","slug":"new-bbc-strictly-come-dancing-hosts-illuminate-blackpool-tower","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/594507\/","title":{"rendered":"New BBC Strictly Come Dancing hosts illuminate Blackpool Tower"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Radebe, who joined the show as a professional dancer in 2018, said returning in the role was &#8220;beyond anything I ever imagined&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;This show has always stood for joy, heart, and togetherness, and I feel deeply honoured to now help carry that magic forward,&#8221; he said. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;To do it alongside the formidable Emma Willis and the utterly brilliant Josh Widdicombe makes it even more special.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">He said he was &#8220;ready \u2013 sequins, nerves, and all&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Stand-up comedian Widdicombe previously competed on the show in a festive special and said: &#8220;Dancing the Charleston dressed as a penguin for the 2024 Christmas Special of Strictly remains my career high point, so I am giddy with excitement, honoured and a little overawed to be given the chance to step into the biggest shoes in television.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;I adore Emma and Jojo and can&#8217;t wait to spend my weekends with them. I&#8217;ll dust off the penguin costume.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Presenters Zoe Ball and Rylan Clark have both recently revealed they were turned down for one of the roles.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Radebe, who joined the show as a professional dancer in 2018, said returning in the role was &#8220;beyond&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":594508,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[96,391,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-594507","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-entertainment","tag-tv","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/594507","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=594507"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/594507\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/594508"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=594507"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=594507"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=594507"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}