{"id":767246,"date":"2026-09-11T12:34:11","date_gmt":"2026-09-11T12:34:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/767246\/"},"modified":"2026-09-11T12:34:11","modified_gmt":"2026-09-11T12:34:11","slug":"strictly-star-names-huge-celebrity-who-inspired-her-to-appear-on-2026-bbc-series","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/767246\/","title":{"rendered":"Strictly star names huge celebrity who inspired her to appear on 2026 BBC series"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Jaime Winstone has revealed an unlikely A-lister unwittingly convinced her to sign up for Strictly Come Dancing<\/a> after a chance encounter at a pal\u2019s birthday. <\/p>\n

The 40-year-old actor is one of the 15 celebrities getting their dancing shoes on<\/a> for this year\u2019s series, alongside the likes of ex-Love Islander Dani Dyer, former footballer Shaun Wright-Phillips and EastEnders star Lacey Turner. <\/p>\n

Speaking ahead of her debut in next Saturday\u2019s (19 September) launch show<\/a>, Winstone said she received two \u201cclear signs\u201d that she should sign up \u2013 including an in-person comment from Taylor Swift<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Asked what made her say yes when approached by the BBC<\/a>, Winstone explained: \u201cA lot of people in my life know how much I love dancing \u2013 music and dance is such a big part of who I am. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere were some clear signs that this should be my Strictly year \u2013 one of them being Madonna\u2019s new album and its track [\u201cDanceteria\u201d] with the lyrics \u2018everybody get up and dance\u2019. I took that as a personal sign as I\u2019m such a huge Madonna fan \u2013 there\u2019s not a room in my house without a disco ball!\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"(BBC\/Ray Burmiston\/BBC Creative)<\/p>\n

Winstone continued: \u201cAnother very clear sign came when I went to my friend Poppy Delevingne<\/a>\u2019s birthday party a few months back, and Taylor Swift was there!<\/p>\n

\u201cI was just dancing as I do, and she came up to me out of nowhere and just said, \u2018Oh my lord, how do you dance so freely?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen someone of her calibre and status says that, it\u2019s a very clear sign! I\u2019ve done every sort of gritty drama you possibly could do, and I usually play people quite a lot older than me, and I just thought: this is the time to step into a realm that I don\u2019t know, which is the ballroom, and give it a real good go.\u201d <\/p>\n

Delevingne, the older sister of model Cara, held a star-studded 40th birthday bash in London back in May. Swift attended with her then-fianc\u00e9 Travis Kelce and the eclectic guestlist also included princesses Beatrice and Eugenie, Pam & Tommy actor Lily James and Elvis director Baz Lurhmann. <\/p>\n

\"SwiftSwift unwittingly had a hand in Winstone\u2019s decision (Getty)<\/p>\n

Strictly will look a little different when it returns to BBC One later this month, as this series will mark the first in 11 years without Tess Daly and Claudia Winkleman at the helm. <\/p>\n

The long-time presenters stepped down at the end of last year\u2019s series<\/a> and have been replaced by former Big Brother host Emma Willis, comedian Josh Widdicombe and dancer Johannes Radebe. <\/p>\n

The line-up of professionals shepherding the celebrities through their Strictly journeys has also faced a shake-up, with five dancers \u2013 including fan favourites Karen Hauer and Gorka Marquez \u2013 leaving, making way for five new faces<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Strictly Come Dancing returns to BBC One and iPlayer on Saturday 19 September. <\/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":767247,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[96,391,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-767246","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\/767246","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=767246"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/767246\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/767247"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=767246"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=767246"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=767246"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}