{"id":75101,"date":"2025-08-18T09:12:17","date_gmt":"2025-08-18T09:12:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/75101\/"},"modified":"2025-08-18T09:12:17","modified_gmt":"2025-08-18T09:12:17","slug":"police-investigate-strictly-come-dancing-weeks-before-start-of-new-series","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/75101\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;Police investigate Strictly Come Dancing&#8217; weeks before start of new series"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"paragraph-text\">The Sun On Sunday reported the corporation has alerted the Metropolitan Police to new allegations about the hit dance competition show, the details of which it does not specify.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph-text\">A BBC spokesperson said on Saturday it does not comment on police investigations.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph-text\">This comes after reports in The Sun earlier this month alleged two Strictly cast members&#8217; drug use was discussed on the show, and that the corporation had appointed law firm Pinsent Masons to lead the investigation.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph-text\">The scandal-hit programme was also the subject of a review in 2024, in which the BBC looked into allegations of bullying and harassment against former professional dancer Giovanni Pernice, made by his former dance partner Amanda Abbington.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph-text\">Read More: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.lbc.co.uk\/article\/full-strictly-come-dancing-2025-line-up-revealed-5Hjd9L5_2\/\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">Full Strictly Come Dancing 2025 line-up revealed<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph-text\">The corporation upheld some, but not all, of the complaints made &#8211; and introduced a series of new measures aimed at improving welfare.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph-text\">Those included the introduction of a chaperone who is present &#8220;at all times&#8221; during training room rehearsals.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph-text\">EastEnders star James Borthwick was also suspended from the BBC after a video emerged of the actor using a disabled slur on the set of the dance programme.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph-text\">The allegations of cocaine use were reportedly made in a legal submission by law firm Russells in March on behalf of former contestant Wynne Evans, who was dropped by the BBC after apologising for using &#8220;inappropriate language&#8221; during the launch of the Strictly tour.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph-text\">It is understood that the corporation often appoints external law firms to help it lead investigations.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph-text\">A BBC spokesperson previously said: &#8220;We have clear protocols and policies in place for dealing with any serious complaint raised with us.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph-text\">&#8220;We would always encourage people to speak to us if they have concerns. It would not be appropriate for us to comment further.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph-text\">The Metropolitan Police has been contacted for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Sun On Sunday reported the corporation has alerted the Metropolitan Police to new allegations about the hit&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":75102,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[96,391,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-75101","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\/75101","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=75101"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75101\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/75102"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75101"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75101"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75101"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}