{"id":631364,"date":"2026-06-10T15:24:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-10T15:24:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/631364\/"},"modified":"2026-06-10T15:24:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-10T15:24:08","slug":"strictly-come-dancing-lacey-turner-confirmed-as-first-2026-celebrity-contestant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/631364\/","title":{"rendered":"Strictly Come Dancing: Lacey Turner confirmed as first 2026 celebrity contestant"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Turner is best known for her role as Stacey Slater on EastEnders, which she joined in 2004.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">She has won a British Soap Award and National Television Award for her role on the show, and has also starred in TV dramas including the BBC&#8217;s Our Girl. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">In a video posted on Instagram, Turner said she was &#8220;so excited and so terrified at the same time&#8221; to be taking part in the show.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;But I&#8217;ve had so many friends do Strictly, and I thought it was about time that I pluck up the courage and made my way on to the dance floor.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">In a statement released by the BBC, she added: &#8220;I can&#8217;t quite believe I will be taking part and not watching at home this year &#8211; I look forward to meeting everyone and learning a new skill!&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Ballas, Craig Revel Horwood, Motsi Mabuse and Anton Du Beke will all return to the series as judges.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">However, professional dancers Gorka Marquez, Nadiya Bychkova, Luba Mushtuk, Karen Hauer and Michelle Tsiakkas <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/articles\/c20214nnggdo\" class=\"ssrcss-1e0jzsh-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">will not be coming back this year. <\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">But other regulars including Amy Dowden, Dianne Buswell, Katya Jones, Vito Coppola and Aljaz Skorjanec will be back on the dance floor. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Turner is best known for her role as Stacey Slater on EastEnders, which she joined in 2004. She&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":631365,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[96,59,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-631364","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-entertainment","tag-gb","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/631364","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=631364"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/631364\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/631365"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=631364"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=631364"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=631364"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}