Dancer who posed in Playboy will strut her stuff on Strictly
THREE glamorous new faces will make their debut on Strictly Come Dancing this year – and one of them comes with a racy past.
After the BBC unveiled the professional dancers yesterday, it emerged that one had posed for a men’s magazine.
Nadiya Bychkova, from Slovenia, appeared in the Ukraine edition of Playboy in 2015, with a picture on the cover showing her clutching her breasts as she posed in skimpy bikini bottoms.
It is not known if the BBC was aware of the 27-year-old’s modelling history when it signed her up, along with Dianne Buswell, 28, and Amy Dowden, 26.
Show bosses had three gaps to fill after the shock departures of Joanne Clifton, Oksana Platero TV and Radio Reporter and Natalie Lowe. Miss Clifton, who won last year’s contest with BBC presenter Ore Oduba, has been cast as the female lead in a tour of Flashdance – The Musical, meaning she could not commit to the dance show. Her departure comes a few months after she succumbed to the notorious ‘ curse of Strictly’, splitting from her boyfriend shortly after filming finished.
Among the three new professional dancers, Australian Miss Buswell is the only single one, while Miss Bychkova and Miss Dowden, who is from Wales, are both in relationships.
Miss Bychkova is a two-time world champion and European champion and star of Bosnia’s version of Strictly Come Dancing. She has a one-year-old child. Fel- low champion Miss Buswell has appeared on Dancing With The Stars Australia, and has starred in the Broadway dance sensation Burn The Floor since 2011.
Miss Dowden, the current British national champion and one of Britain’s highest-ranked ballroom and Latin American professional dancers, is the first Welsh professional on Strictly.