Strictly Come Dancing's first 'curse' scandal hit in its very first season, leaving pro dancer Camilla Dallerup feeling "broken" after her engagement to Brendan Cole ended. The pair had been together for eight years when rumours began about Brendan and his celebrity partner Natasha Kaplinsky.
Rumours and the end of an engagement
During the show's first season, viewers started to wonder if something was happening between Brendan and Natasha. Both have always said nothing happened between them, but that did not stop Brendan's engagement to Camilla from ending.
Brendan has claimed that Camilla left him after she and antiques dealer David Dickinson were kicked out of the competition. "They announced that we were safe and Camilla and David were leaving. And, you know, your natural reaction to news like that is you go like, you know, we're safe. She took that as, 'you unsupportive so-and-so.'"
Camilla's account of the split
When Camilla opened up about the break-up, she had a different story. Over a decade later, she told The Mirror that the episode left her feeling "broken".
"To this day, I have no idea whether it was her fame and celebrity that swept him away or if he really did feel a strong connection with her," she said in 2015. "I'm guessing it was probably a bit of both. What was really hurtful was not just that Brendan appeared to have forgotten he was engaged, the entire nation seem to have forgotten he was engaged."
Even though they shared a flat, a phone, and one email address, Camilla felt she and Brendan had become estranged practically overnight. Recalling the "shame and humiliation" of watching Brendan congratulate Natasha after a dance by kissing her on the lips, Camilla said she was worried about the pairing from the beginning.
She said: "We were introduced to our respective partners. Brendan was over the moon. He literally skipped through the door when he came home and that was the moment I lost Brendan. We normally shared every thought, every little thing, but suddenly his thoughts were elsewhere. I had this terrible foreboding [that] something awful was about to happen."
Later admissions and other examples
She moved out of their flat soon after, while Brendan and Natasha went on to win the show. Years later, Brendan admitted that "something" did happen, but insisted it was never an affair. "The chemistry was there, plain for all to see," he admitted. But he added: "I didn't have an affair. Camilla chose to leave. Once you do something, after that it's not an affair."
Natasha has also made it clear that their "chemistry" was only ever skin deep. "There was chemistry, of course, and I certainly fell in love with dancing, but I did not fall in love with Brendan," she explained at the time.
There have been many other examples of the curse throughout the years. In 2007, Matt Di Angelo and his partner, Flavia Cacace, started dating shortly after she split from her boyfriend of eight years, Vincent Simone. Though they denied having an affair, Matt told the Daily Mail at the time: "The funny thing was the story did not start off as true, but the more you read it, the more you started to believe it and actually act on it."
Only a week into his 2009 Strictly stint, Joe Calzaghe split from his girlfriend of five years. Soon after, he began dating his pro partner Kristina Rihanoff. They were together for four years, and the same year they split, Kristina found herself at the centre of another curse scandal.
In 2013, rugby star Ben Cohen announced that he and his wife of 11 years were splitting. He denied that he had started dating Kristina, with whom he had been paired on Strictly, but the two later began seeing each other and now share a child.
Rachel Riley also split from her husband whilst on the show and less than a year later, announced she was dating pro partner Pasha Kovalev. She has, however, said that there was no overlap between the relationships.
But the most infamous example came in 2018, when Katya Jones and Seann Walsh were spotted kissing during a night out. The incident made national news, and the two ultimately had to apologise live on It Takes Two.
