Dressed in their sequinned finest and looking like a million dollars, ‘little puddings’ is the last phrase that springs to mind when you see our stunning Weekend cover shoot of this season’s Strictly stars Dani Dyer and Vicky Pattison.
But that’s certainly how Vicky feels, fresh to our studio not long after ‘Big Dance Day’ – when all the Strictly celebrities and professionals get together for the first time.
‘You’re with the tiny professional female dancers carved by angels – they’re the most beautiful creatures – and you’re standing there like a little pudding in your gym kit.
‘And that’s before you start dancing and realise how inept you are. I was in a state of shock,’ is how former I’m A Celebrity queen Vicky, 37, puts it.
As is former Love Island winner Dani, 29, though in her case it’s because of the realisation that for all the toil of rehearsals, at some point she’ll have to do it on live TV.
‘It’s actually that more than the dancing,’ she confides. ‘Live telly petrifies me. I’ve said no to so many things because I’m panicked at the thought of being live. You have no second chance. So that’s my big fear.’
We won’t fall victim to the Strictly curse and waltz off with our dance pros, say contestants Vicky Pattison and Dani Dyer… our husbands are too gorgeous
Dani and Vicky have really hit it off since joining the Strictly 2025 cast, sharing their nerves – and ‘a bit of gossip,’ says Vicky – in WhatsApp chats.
‘I was going to say terrified, so yes, petrified works,’ says Vicky.
They’ve only got themselves to blame either way, because both of them ‘manifested’ taking part in the show (or at least one of them did, the other had it done for her).
Two years ago, Vicky reveals, she created a vision board on which, amid the pictures of ‘wedding dresses, engagement rings, puppies and houses’ was a picture of ex-Hollyoaks actress and 2017 Strictly star Gemma Atkinson in sequins with Vicky’s head stuck on top.
‘I feel like a proper creep,’ she laughs. ‘But I love a bit of manifestation.’
As, it turns out, does Dani, who thinks Strictly was manifested for her by her mother-in-law, mum to her West Ham captain husband of four months Jarrod Bowen, and who she affectionately calls ‘a bit of a white witch’.
‘She’s a diehard Strictly fan, and last year when she was watching it she said, ‘I think that’ll be you next year,’ Dani says.
‘She got me manifestation cards and crystals, and I feel like ever since I’ve started down that road things have changed. It’s about positive energy.’
No argument from Vicky, who claims that all manner of professional and personal ambitions – from documentary-making and presenting radio shows to dog ownership and husband acquisition – have come to life via her vision board.
Vicky bluntly shot down any worries she might get the hots for her partner as she joked: ‘Have you seen my husband?’ (pictured with Ercan in 2024)
Meanwhile Dani joked: ‘I’m a newlywed for God’s sake,’ after tying the knot with footballer Jarrod Bowen at the start of summer
So it’s little surprise that Dani and Vicky have really hit it off since joining the Strictly 2025 cast, sharing their nerves – and ‘a bit of gossip,’ says Vicky – in WhatsApp chats.
This year’s other contestants are Harry Aikines-Aryeetey, aka Gladiator Nitro, actors Alex Kingston, Stefan Dennis, Lewis Cope and Balvinder Sopal.
As well as former footballers Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink and Karen Carney, drag artist La Voix, former rugby player Chris Robshaw, model Ellie Goldstein, who has Down’s syndrome, and TV personalities Thomas Skinner and Ross King.
Although Vicky and Dani have a background in reality TV in common, Vicky says she has ‘mixed feelings’ about her time as one of the louder stars of the Newcastle-set MTV series Geordie Shore, in which she starred from 2011 to 2014.
‘I’m grateful, but even at the time I didn’t always love it. I was always overthinking it, and at times I felt controlled and uncomfortable, and I coped by drinking more than I should. I was a kid really, and had a lot of growing up to do.’
Little wonder that Vicky has made a determined effort to branch out in recent years.
While she entered the celebrity jungle in 2015, emerging as queen, she has latterly focused her energies on her podcast Get A Grip and documentaries, although she accepts that for some she will always be ‘just’ a reality TV star.
‘Some people are committed to the idea of who you were 15 years ago,’ she says.
Dani, arguably, is less troubled by public perception: while she sprang to wider fame after appearing in 2018’s Love Island – she and then boyfriend Jack Fincham won the series by a landslide – being daughter of the irrepressible actor Danny Dyer meant she grew up with a keen sense of how the industry works.
‘Dad was very clear that I should always be myself, not change who I am for other people, and not take what people say too much to heart,’ she says. ‘I’ve had some good insights.’
Danny, together with Dani’s mum Joanne, will be in the audience cheering on their daughter at the Strictly launch.
She clearly loves her dad to bits – her first dance at the wedding was not with Jarrod but her dad, with whom she slow-danced to a rendition of Ray Charles’s song Georgia On My Mind after he’d walked her down the aisle.
She points out that as her parents were so young when they had her (Danny was just 19), in a way they’ve all grown up together. ‘We’re like mates really,’ she says.
Recalling her first date with Ercan, Vicky said: ‘I remember crying just before I was due to go. But then boom. He went to the toilet, and I texted all my friends and said, ‘Buy a hat!’
They moved in together eight months later, though they only finally married last year. Vicky has also frozen her eggs for when the couple are ready to start a family
Dani shares two-year-old twins Summer and Star with Jarrod and four-year-old Santiago with her stockbroker ex Sammy Kimmence
Still only 48, Danny is now a grandfather too to four-year-old Santiago, known as Santi, Dani’s son via her stockbroker ex Sammy Kimmence, and Summer and Star, her two-year-old twins with Jarrod.
Having broken up with Jack Fincham within months of leaving Love Island, only to then separate from Santi’s dad when he was just a few months old, Dani confides she wasn’t exactly looking for love when Jarrod, who lived next door, started to pop round to deliver parcels and – she now confides with a laugh – ask for help reading his electricity meter.
‘I now know he’s not the sort of person who’d ever read his meter, so it was an excuse to chat to me,’ she says, hooting with laughter.
‘But at the time my hair was a mess and I was breastfeeding, so I wasn’t exactly looking my best and it didn’t occur to me he might fancy me.’
She in turn hadn’t a clue that her handsome and friendly neighbour with the startling blue eyes was a Premier League footballer.
‘If I’d known it would have put me right off him,’ she says. Only after he’d moved from the area did Jarrod pluck up the courage to message Dani and ask her on a date.
Swayed by those blue eyes, Dani decided to give him a chance. ‘And thank God I did,’ she says. ‘Because he’s just a lovely guy, so chilled and easy.’
While not exactly a Diehard Strictly fan like his mum, Jarrod will come to a live show any time his football timetable allows.
‘He’s hugely supportive,’ Dani says. ‘Everyone in the family is excited for me, especially Mum. She sacrificed a lot for us, so she’s keen for me to keep doing what I love. She is very much, ‘You’re a mum, but always be Dani too. Just enjoy it.’
Dani confides she wasn’t exactly looking for love when Jarrod, who lived next door, started to pop round to deliver parcels and ask for help reading his electricity meter.
Jarrod will come to a live show any time his football timetable allows. ‘He’s hugely supportive,’ Dani says. ‘Everyone in the family is excited for me, especially Mum’
Vicky had a bumpy path to her happy ever after: following a number of short-lived relationships in her twenties (pictured with Ercan in May)
There are no worries about the so-called Strictly curse – in which happily married celebrity contestants fall for their professional partners, about whom they’re sworn to secrecy ahead of tonight’s launch.
‘I’m a newlywed for God’s sake,’ laughs Dani, adding that Jarrod’s mum predicted who her partner would be too. ‘She said it would be one of two professionals, and she was spot on.’
Vicky is even blunter when asked if she worries she might get the hots for her partner.
‘Have you seen my husband?’ she says of businessman Ercan Ramadan, the clothing firm owner she married a year ago. ‘No offence to the dancers, they’re lovely lads, but he’s gorgeous and wonderful in every way.’
Not least because Vicky had a bumpy path to her happy ever after: following a number of short-lived relationships in her twenties she was engaged to Newcastle businessman John Noble, only for that relationship to break down in 2018 amid rumours of his infidelity.
‘I thought that was my happily ever after, and in some ways I felt I failed,’ she says.
Fast forward a few months, and a semi-reluctant Vicky went on a date with Ercan after he messaged her on Instagram.
‘I remember crying just before I was due to go,’ she says. ‘But then boom. He went to the toilet, and I texted all my friends and said, ‘Buy a hat!’
They moved in together eight months later, though they only finally married last year.
By then Vicky had frozen her eggs, a decision she says they made together early on in their relationship.
‘I believed our relationship deserved a chance to develop naturally before the biological clock took over,’ she says.
When she’ll make the leap to motherhood is up in the air, but it’s definitely off the agenda during Strictly. ‘I think that’s enough of a challenge for now,’ she says.
Vicky faces other challenges too. Two years ago, after years of battling horrendous symptoms that were continually ignored by professionals, she was diagnosed with PMDD (premenstrual dysphoric disorder), a debilitating condition that affects women of childbearing age.
Her experience has been so devastating that after going public she’s become a campaigner for an end to what she calls ‘medical misogyny’, and recently wrote to Health Secretary Wes Streeting asking for a meeting to discuss the issue.
‘He’s replied, and I’m due to meet him next month,’ she reveals.
It’s clear how much what’s happened to her has taken its toll: her eyes fill with tears as she recalls her years-long struggle with symptoms.
‘At its worst you totally lose yourself. I’m quite an outgoing, confident, happy woman, but that gets completely replaced with despair.
‘You get heightened anxiety, exhaustion, insomnia, catastrophising, fear of everything. Nothing brings you joy.’ She pauses. ‘I’m actually going through it now.’
Could that mar her Strictly journey too? ‘I don’t know,’ she says. ‘I can’t control it. I was actually going through PMDD for both my weddings. But at the end of the day joy won. And I hope it will again.’
In the meantime her focus is on the practical stuff. She’s had advice from her podcast co-host and Strictly 2023 contestant Angela Scanlon, who urged her to start bathing her feet in surgical spirit, as well as ‘best pal’ and Strictly 2024 alumnus Pete Wicks, who will be in the audience at some point.
‘He was living on his nerves the entire time and as we have very similar personalities I’m trying to prepare myself for that,’ she laughs.
Of course, nothing can really prepare you for that first moment of emerging onto the Strictly dance floor in front of a live audience.
As we know, Dani is particularly terrified. ‘It’s like that moment of walking into a room and not knowing why you’re there,’ she says. ‘Except in front of millions. I’ve just got to hope everything I’ve learned kicks in.’
Strictly Come Dancing returns Saturday night, 6.40pm, BBC1 and iPlayer.
