How Britain’s Biggest Reality Competition Series Became the Focus of Scandal

Reality TV shows seem designed to attract as much drama as possible. Manufacturing squabbles and tiffs for primetime entertainment is always going to lead to off-screen spillover, even if everyone involved knows it’s meant to be fake. In America, the Bravo-verse of neverending structured reality shows is experiencing a reckoning between cast members pushing for greater industry protection and unplanned infidelities leading to all-too-real emotional pain. British reality TV isn’t exempt from this, even as its own reality offerings are seen as far more low-key than their Yankee counterparts. But when scandals emerged from the most beloved Saturday night programme in the nation, a cozy favourite took a very dark turn.

Strictly Come Dancing is a dance competition series wherein various celebrities are partnered with professional dancers and compete in weekly themed contests for both a panel of judges and a public vote. It started life as a long-running series called Come Dancing, wherein normal people were taught how to perform ballroom dancing (the new title comes partly from the Baz Luhrmann film Strictly Ballroom, and no, we don’t know why they settled on a nonsensical series of words either.) Since its premiere in 2004, it’s remained one of the pillars of the BBC’s primetime line-up. After 21 seasons and a number of Christmas and charity specials, it’s remained a major ratings hit. It’s also viewed as the most legitimate reality competition series for a British celebrity to compete on. It’s classier than, for example, I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here!, and those who perform well over the course of three months of intensive training tend to get a real career boost out of it. Past winners include Natasha Kaplinsky, a former newsreader who is now the president of the BBFC, singer and TV presenter Alesha Dixon, and comedian Bill Bailey. In the interim 20 years, the series has been licensed to dozens of countries worldwide, most notably Dancing with the Stars in the US. The franchise is worth a lot of money.

So yeah, this show is a very big deal on several levels. The news that there may have been systemic cruelty and physical violence towards contestants has put a major dent in what is seen as one of the coziest shows on British TV. Last year, Amanda Abbington, an actress you might know from Sherlock, signed on to compete on Strictly but pulled out several weeks in, citing health issues. In January of this year, The Sun reported that Abbington was seeking legal advice following her time on the series, and was alleging that she had been cruelly mistreated by her dance partner, Giovanni Pernice. As the months passed, more reports emerged alleging that Pernice had mistreated other contestants from seasons past, including TV presenter Laura Whitmore. Legal firm Carter Ruck told BBC News there were ‘numerous serious complaints’ about his behaviour. Pernice quit the show in May of this year but denied the accusations.

Last week, the BBC’s probe into misconduct on the show revealed that another dancer, Graziano Di Prima, had allegedly mistreated his dance partner from last year’s season, reality star Zara McDermott. Footage of their training sessions, which has not been made public, reportedly shows Di Prima kicking McDermott and leaving her in tears. He issued an apology for this and claimed it was a one-off mistake. McDermott’s team says it wasn’t a singular incident, and that she finds rewatching the footage to be ‘incredibly distressing.’ The Daily Mail reported this past weekend that Di Prima ‘chased after’ McDermott, screaming abuse at her until she locked herself in a washroom to escape him. The BBC has announced that Di Prima has left the show, and in the future, a member of the production team will be present at all times during rehearsals. A third dancer has reportedly been identified as a ‘person of interest’ in this ongoing investigation.

This isn’t the first scandal that Strictly has faced. Several years ago, one of the dancers, Anton du Beke, used a racial slur against his Indian dance partner. In 2009, the series replaced its 66-year-old judge Arlene Phillips with a 30-year-old former contestant with far less dance experience, leading to accusations of ageism. These current allegations are garnering a lot of attention the BBC cannot sweep away with an apologetic statement. The pressure of trying to turn a non-dancer into a ballroom expert in mere weeks is evident, and the professional dancing world is a notoriously tough one where high-pressure situations and tyrannical instructors are the norm. Indeed, a big part of the show’s appeal is in seeing that growth. But it’s all packaged in rather soft narratives. Sometimes, tears are shed but it’s not out of fear that your dance partner will kick you. It’s meant to be inspiring and aspirational, not fearful. The simple joy of watching two people dress up and dance is obviously made a little more rotten when you can’t stop thinking about whether or not the contestant was sobbing behind the scenes.

The BBC will do everything they can to ensure that Strictly Come Dancing remains on the air and making money. Cutting it from their schedules would essentially mean giving up control of that timeslot in perpetuity. To ensure the safety of their contestants, they’ll need to drastically change how they do business. That means monitoring all of the training sessions, doing more thorough background checks on the professional dancers, and implementing better mental health and wellness help for the celebrities. Having the public vote on you week after week is trying enough without worrying that your partner will assault you. If this rot does go deeper and it turns out that even more of the dancers are engaging in this level of misconduct, it’ll take more than an investigation to fix the jewel in their programming crown.