While romantic tensions are brewing behind the scenes at Strictly, the cast of 2024 has also been rocked by a reported friendship break-up between pro dancers Nancy Xu and Carlos Gu.
Childhood friends who grew up together in China, Nancy and Carlos joined the show’s cast in 2021 and 2022 respectively. They’ve supported each other over the years, with Carlos reaching the final in 2022 with Molly Rainford, while Nancy made it to the semi-final with Will Mellor.
The pair have previously compared their friendship to that of a ‘brother and sister’, but fans suspected that the pair had fallen out after Nancy, 33, and Carlos, 31, unfollowed each other on Instagram and deleted all their photos together from their public social media pages.
According to reports, the old friends’ fallout has saddened their fellow dancers, creating an ‘awkward’ and ‘tense’ environment backstage.
However, the pair attempted to put on a united front when they appeared together in a social media dance for the Strictly Instagram alongside Big Brother star Yinrun Huang. Together, the pair joined Yinrun to recreate the viral dance to Charli XCX’s Apple, after the song played a major role in her engagement earlier this year.
Last week, Carlos addressed the feud, confirming that he and Nancy (who danced with Shayne Ward this year) had argued but were ultimately ‘fine’.
‘We've been friends since childhood, and friends argue,’ he said. ‘We're too close and are like brother and sister to completely fall out.’
Rumours had suggested that the pair had initially clashed after Carlos – like Kai – wasn’t given a celebrity partner on the latest series. This stemmed from a gender-imbalance among the show’s all-star cast, which featured six female celebrities to the nine famous men competing. As a result, a number of popular male pros were left without partners this autumn.
