Strictly Come Dancing fans have been left stunned by a mass axing of professional dancers - but new ones are on the way. Judge Shirley Ballas confirmed previously that five new professional dancers would join the BBC show ahead of the new series after five fan favourites departed the show earlier this year.
Karen Hauer - who was the show's longest-serving female pro - left the show earlier this year alongside Gorka Marquez, Nadiya Bychkova, Luba Mushtuk, and Michelle Tsiakkas. It's been the biggest changeover of pro dancers in recent years.
Maddie Ingoldsby reportedly signs up
Now, it has been reported that dancer Maddie Ingoldsby has signed up for the new series. Sources claimed the exits were an "awful fate" for some of their stars, with each sharing a heartfelt message on their exits.
"It's very much a case of out with the old and in with the new," one source claimed at the time. Another added: "It's an awful fate for the professional dancers who have dedicated their careers to the show."
Social media focus
There had been reports that the focus was on the Strictly stars who had more social media followers as the show tries to appeal to a wider audience. It had been said that being big on TikTok could have "saved" some of the dancers.
"Strictly is always looking for ways to increase its audience in terms of volume, but also in terms of attracting new, young viewers. Social media is a massive part of broadening that appeal, and TikTok is the perfect medium for a show where music and dance is at the forefront," a source claimed of the show's focus on followers.
"They won't simply lose someone from the line up because they aren't big on TikTok, but it might just be the thing that saves them from exiting the line-up."
Maddie has a huge following on Instagram and TikTok, a combined total of over 400,000 followers across the platforms. She has over 37 million likes on TikTok, where she posts outfit and make-up content.
End of dance partnership
Earlier this year, she and fellow professional dancer Mark Chilcote announced they were ending their seven year dance partnership.
"After the most extraordinary seven years of our lives, we have made the incredibly difficult decision to bring our partnership to an end. Some endings don't arrive because our passion has faded, they arrive because life asks us to grow in new directions," she said, hinting at a big lifechanging event for her.
"No collection of words can describe what our partnership in dance has meant to us, and what we've meant to one another. We didn't just dance together, we grew up together. Our partnership has been our greatest teacher and our greatest treasure."
She added: "It has challenged us to find strength in one another, and opened up the world to us in ways we couldn't have dreamed possible, performing on countless stages across twenty countries. Dance has been our language to express what words never could. Every note of music, every step, every breath, every moment on the dance floor was a piece of who we were. We never danced to simply win. We danced to tell our story, and we hope that somewhere along the way, our story became a small part of yours."
They ended their statement with the words: "Our story will live on in hearts and in memory, and with the end of one chapter a new one awaits each of us. Mark is in search of a new dance partnership, while Maddie is putting a pause on her competitive dancing."
