Oti Mabuse says Strictly will ‘survive’ without Claudia Winkleman and Tess Daly

Former Strictly Come Dancing professional Oti Mabuse has said she is hopeful the show will “survive and thrive” following the departure of co-presenting duo Claudia Winkleman and Tess Daly.

The dancer, 35, who left the series in 2022, described the duo as “brilliant” after they announced in October that they would be leaving the show after fronting it together for nearly a decade.

Their replacements have yet to be announced.

However, Mabuse, who is now the head judge on the Irish version of the show titled Dancing With The Stars, has no doubt that whoever bags the gig will do the job “splendidly”.

In an interview with The Times, Mabuse said: “I love Strictly. I wouldn’t be sitting here without that show.

“Strictly belongs to the people, and as long as the people still love it, it will go on for years.

“Claudia and Tess are … I get emotional when I talk about it, because they are just so brilliant.

“Nobody really sees the work Tess has to do — that show’s live, she’s making sure it’s not running over.

“Now I’m a judge I appreciate the job even more because I can talk for days, I can hear the producers in my ear saying: ‘Make it snappy!’

“Then Claudia’s amazing … her wit, her humour.

“But we’ve lost judges, we’ve lost pros, we’ve lost producers and the show is just itself. I think it will survive and thrive.

“I think anyone who gets asked to do that job is so lucky and will do it splendidly – the producers will do a good job (choosing) because they know that show better than any of us.”

The South African dancer was one of the most successful professionals to have appeared on Strictly Come Dancing having won the show two years in a row in 2019 and 2020.

Over the course of her illustrious dance career, Mabuse has gone on to win the South African Latin American championships eight times with appearances on The Greatest Dancer as a dance captain and a judge on ITV’s Dancing On Ice.

Despite her successful career, she has struggled with her body as a “curvy” dancer – which she now describes as her “superpower”.

She said: “There’s a specific way they expect a dancer to look. And I’ve always been curvy with bigger boobs.

“I’m African. My ancestors are curvy.

“When you’re an athlete with a bigger chest it’s so difficult. But once I came to terms with it when I was dancing, being different felt like my superpower.

“It helped me stick out and now I try to spread positivity to girls who might feel held back by their body shape.

“You get the same critique for being skinny there you get for being plus-size here — it’s an Olympic sport. As a people we’re so brutally honest.

“The conversation at home could be quite toxic.”

The mother-of-one is determined to avoid these sorts of comments being made around her daughter, which she shares with her husband Romanian dancer Marius Iepure, adding that she had to step in once when her family commented on the first granddaughter in the family after describing her as “very chubby”.

She said: “I had to say to my family, ‘I don’t like that. I am finding certain conversations really difficult and could you please not use language about weight in front of the children, because they need a safe haven’.

“Now the older generation’s got better and it’s done wonders for us all.”