Strictly Come Dancing presenters Tess Daly and Claudia Winkleman are exiting at the end of this season.
In a statement posted on Daly’s Instagram, the pair said “we were always going to leave together and now feels like the right time.”
“We have loved working as a duo and hosting Strictly has been an absolute dream,” added the pair, who have hosted the hit BBC series for more than a decade. “We will have the greatest rest of this amazing series and we just want to say an enormous thank you to the BBC and to every single person who works on the show. They’re the most brilliant team and we’ll miss them every day.”
They added: “We will cry when we say the last “keep dancing” but we will continue to say it to each other. Just possibly in tracksuit bottoms at home while holding some pizza.”
The shock news comes at a time of change for Strictly, which has had to grapple with a number of scandals over the past couple of years.
Daly and Winkleman have been hosting Strictly since Bruce Forsyth stepped down in 2013, at which point Winkleman, who had already been helming the results show, took over.
The pair are a fixture on Saturday and Sunday night BBC TV on what is the UK’s biggest entertainment show, regularly drawing audiences of millions of viewers per week. Both presenters are recognizable faces on UK TV screens and Winkleman’s stock has risen of late as she has gained iconic status for presenting The Traitors and the current Celebrity Traitors, also for the BBC.
Last year, Strictly was hit with scandal as two professional dancers exited following allegations of misconduct. This season, the BBC launched an investigation into allegations of drug use on the show.
Thoughts will of course turn to who could replace Winkleman and Daly on the show that remains incredibly popular and a huge part of the BBC’s schedule in the run-up to Christmas.
Produced by BBC Studios, Strictly has aired on the BBC from September to Christmas since 2004. The U.S. version, Dancing with the Stars, has been on TV for 20 years and multiple other versions air around the world.
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