Fleur East has emerged as the early front-runner to win Strictly Come Dancing this year, with both bookies and fans left saying the thing after the full line-up was announced, with the odds already 'ruling out' some of her rivals for a chance of victory.
Fleur, 34, is one of 15 celebs now confirmed to take part in the new series of the smash hit BBC show, joining the likes of Kym Marsh, Will Mellor, James Bye and Helen Skelton. Former Blue Peter presenter Helen was the last of this year's Strictly stars to be revealed, but her addition to the list did little to change the early odds on who will take home the coveted Glitterball trophy in just a few months time.
After a strong start to the announcements, with former Hear'Say singer and Coronation Street actress Kym and Two Pints of Lager legend Will the first two out of the bag, some fans complained the Strictly line-up had 'tailed off', with them left searching for answers on who some of them were.
READ MORE: Strictly Come Dancing 2022 line-up in full as fans are torn
However, there was great excitement on Thursday when Fleur was confirmed to be taking part. The singer very nearly scored a number 1 of her own with a cover of Uptown Funk after she performed it on The X Factor in 2014, before Mark Ronson & Bruno Mars released their version.
Fleur went onto finish second to Ben Haenow that year, before scoring a huge chart hit with debut single Sax in 2015. And now both experts and many fans are tipping her to go one better than she did on X Factor eight years ago, by taking the Strictly 2022 title.
Bookies have her as the clear early favourite on odds of 11/4. But, while the odds are good news for Fleur, they don't make quite as pleasing reading for Loose Women star Kaye Adams and football icon Tony Adams with them on 22/1 and 25/1 respectively. Other odds include Kym Marsh on 9-2 and EastEnders' James Bye on 16/1.
Many fans had Fleur as the nailed on winner almost as soon as her place on the line-up was rubber-stamped. Reacting to a tweet on the Strictly account, one declared: "The winner is Fleur East," as another replied: "That’s the winner decided then! Love Fleur East!!!
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