Former EastEnders actress Rose Ayling-Ellis has responded to an article that called Strictly Come Dancing the BBC's "latest woke box-ticking exercise". The 27-year-old, who was the show's first deaf contestant, shared Strictly co-star John Whaite's Instagram Story which slammed the article published in The Telegraph.
The article made comparisons to Rose and the 2022 series' contestant Ellie Simmonds, who has achondroplasia, as well as comparing John's same-sex pairing with Johannes Radebe last year to Richie Anderson and Giovanni Pernice's partnership this year.
In John's Instagram Story, he said that he'd had a "sleepless night" after reading what had been written about himself and Rose and, particularly, the comparisons made to this year's contestants Richie and Ellie, who is partnered with Nikita Kuzmin.
