Binge-drinking comic, his vengeful ex, the man-eating Russian... and her drag act hubby
The startling inside story of Strictly’s most lurid scandal yet
CUE the jazz hands and fake smiles.
Yesterday, the BBC announced that, contrary to rumour, comedian Seann Walsh and his professional dance partner Katya Jones will not bow out of Strictly Come Dancing, but are planning to ride out the scandal by performing a jaunty Charleston on Saturday night’s show.
It’s a dance which won’t require them to spend much time ‘in hold’ — surely a wise decision as they try to banish memories of that steamy clinch which led to Walsh being publicly dumped by his girlfriend in a blistering statement.
But who on earth is Seann Walsh — a small-time comedian few Strictly viewers will previously have heard of — who has become Britain’s most controversial man overnight? And who is the loyal girlfriend who put out that statement?
ALISON BOSHOFF reveals all you ever wanted to know about the key players in the biggest scandal in Strictly’s history . . .
CHARMER HOOKED ON SELF-DESTRUCTION
FEW will have heard of comedian Seann Walsh, 32, before the current furore. Friends of his ex-girlfriend Becky Humphries say that although it has been a devastating blow, it’s not exactly unexpected.
Indeed one pal of Ms Humphries told me: ‘He has a real impulse to self-sabotage. Seann is a selfdestructive person who lives a life of chaos, and he has problems with booze. This was a problem waiting to happen.’
He himself has said: ‘I have periods when I go off and into bad behaviour. Some of it comes around intoxication, that’s the gateway, anyway. Comedians don’t have much self-control and I see it as a weakness and a vulnerability.’
In truth, the ‘one-off drunken mistake’ with Katya is claimed to be not his only indiscretion.
The friend says: ‘Becky thinks this is not the first time he has cheated. She has suspected it of him before.
‘Being a comedian, you have women throwing themselves at you, and you travel around the country performing at night and then having a big night on the booze afterwards. He has always denied it.’
Walsh has built his whole career on routines which focus on his dissolute lifestyle. One critic spoke of him ‘bragging about booze and squalor’. Another noted: ‘Last year he did a show about binge-drinking. This year his show is, well, largely about binge-drinking.’
And it’s when he drinks that the bad behaviour starts. He said in a prescient interview five years ago: ‘When I was at school I enjoyed misbehaving and I still do. That’s the impulse. To do the wrong thing, to say the wrong thing.
‘If it seems that I shouldn’t do something, then I will do it. I have a little less control than most people. Now and again, I’m going to slip up.’
It seems that Becky Humphries had felt that she could save Walsh, who’s been described as a ‘troubled soul’, and transform him with settled domesticity in their shared flat in West London.
But it seems their lifestyle — which he wryly mocked as encompassing the faddishness of poached egg and avocado on rye bread, plus regular sunshine holidays — could not save him.
He was raised in Lewisham, South London, followed by the ‘cr***y outskirts of Brighton’ by parents Patricia and Malcolm.
He said his home life was so unstable they did not even have a table at which to sit and eat a meal. He recalled his dad would go to the BP garage at midnight, ‘hoping his wages had come through’ so he could afford cigarettes.
He passed only one GCSE — in drama — due to ‘being an idiot’ and started doing stand-up as a teenager.
At this point he changed his name to Seann — the second ‘n’ being a homage to the actor Seann William Scott, famous for the comedy film American Pie.
Walsh’s everyman routine found many fans, yet success on a big scale was still wanting.
There was a point around 2013 when it seemed he might break into the mainstream. He had his own show on a cable channel, but somehow a move to the big time didn’t happen.
One friend of Ms Humphries said: ‘There was a feeling among her friends that he was on the brink of becoming massively successful and then he messed it up because he just wasn’t reliable enough.’
His friends include Blake Harrison, famous as Neil in The Inbetweeners, whose wedding in Mauritius Walsh attended, BakeOff star Noel Fielding and comedian Romesh Ranganathan.
After appearing on panel shows such as Mock The Week and Play To The Whistle, Walsh grabbed the chance to play Grizzo in the ITV sitcom Bad Move last year.
His appearance on Strictly is part of that same determination to enter mainstream entertainment and be counted among the likes of Michael McIntyre or Jimmy Carr.
In her statement, Ms Humphries said his ‘controlling behaviour’ had come from a ‘place of vulnerability’ and added: ‘Despite everything I hope he gets what he wants from this.’ That now looks unlikely, however fabulous his Charleston.
GIRL WHO PRESENTED ‘PERFECT’ ROMANCE
ACCUSED of ‘gaslighting’ and controlling behaviour by his ex, the romance was first — confusingly — presented as picture-perfect by Ms Humphries on her Instagram account @beckshumps.
Strictly super-fan Becky, an actress and playwright, said she had moved furniture in their Shepherd’s Bush flat to make space for Walsh to practise dance moves. She posted her support for
#teamdreamcurls, writing: ‘I can’t bloody breathe. These two legends are working their a***s off.
‘Walsh has been doing moves on holiday, in coffee shops, around Westfield, at the pub, in his sleep. We have moved half our (very heavy) furniture to create a Shepherd’s Bush at home dance studio. I am LIVING for it.’ In week one, she had a T-shirt made for him that read: ‘Keep calm and listen to Katya.’ She looked thrilled by his paso doble on Saturday night.
On Monday, though, she said she had been tortured for three weeks by suspicions that he was cheating on her with his dance partner.
Having revealed the photograph of Walsh and Katya kissing was taken on her birthday, Becky also said he had ‘aggressively’ called her ‘psycho/nuts/mental’ and their five-year relationship made her feel ‘worthless’ and ‘trapped’.
However, it is clear she could hardly have done more for her volatile lover.
In an interview given after his first week on Strictly he said she almost reduced him to tears by presenting him with a book containing good luck messages from all his friends and comedy heroes.
But was there something onesided about the devotion? Walsh said he didn’t want to talk about getting married, remarking: ‘I don’t want her to think every time I stoop to pick something up I’m going to present her with a ring.’
Nonetheless, a friend said: ‘She is absolutely devastated and heartbroken. Now that she has said what she wants to say, she has no intention of trying to build a public profile on the back of this.’
Many women are applauding her sly dig at him, though, in the statement where she called him Sean(n) — a reference to the fact he added an extra ‘n’ to his name.
Becky, 32, trained at Lamda and is an accomplished theatre actress. She performed in Pomona at the National and Open Court at the Royal Court, plus Wild Honey at the Hampstead Theatre. She has been on Radio 4 in several plays.
In 2014, she wrote Dizney Rascal, an hour-long musical comedy show, which she performed at the Edinburgh Fringe. She said: ‘It kind of questioned whether you can be a Disney fan and also a “woke” person, knowing what we now
know about Walt’s background and the progress we’ve made in terms of equality.’ On television she has appeared in the ITV sitcom Come Fly With Me and in BBC2’s The Agency.
THE RUTHLESS RUSSIAN HEIRESS
DANCE professional Katya is the daughter of a millionaire energy executive and has been unstintingly supported in her quest for fame by her Russian family — not to mention her smitten husband, fellow professional dancer Neil Jones.
He described her this year as ‘crazy, creative, smart, loving and bossy’.
Born Ekaterina Sokolova, she is from Sestroretsk, a health spa resort on the Gulf of Finland, on the edge of St Petersburg.
Father Andrey is an energy executive for a company linked to behemoth Gazprom, and studied law at Leningrad State University — like Vladimir Putin. Her mother Tatiana Kim is Korean, has a degree in architecture and civil engineering and a reputation as a forceful character.
There was always money for dance lessons, which she started aged six, and to buy her dance outfits at £650 a time.
Katya and Neil enjoy a flashy life, with holidays in five-star hotels in Dubai and Miami, and carrying Louis Vuitton luggage.
A Strictly source says Katya is devastated because she fears the scandal will affect her relationship with the public, and she also realises she has no chance of winning this series, and may not be invited back next year.
Katya’s former dance partner in Russia Igor Astafiev told me she broke his heart by ruthlessly dumping him — to help achieve her dreams of stardom.
He said: ‘I admit that she was my true first love. I was 22 then but I had never experienced anything like this before, I adored her. We were madly in love. We had a really strong personal attraction to each other, but her parents were obviously not happy with Katya’s choice of boyfriend. They had another future mapped out for her in their minds.
‘I am a very proud man, I do not bear any kind of humiliation. One day I just exploded. It was not long before that trip to Blackpool in 2008 where we were supposed to go and compete together.
‘It is true that the tickets had been bought, but in the end Katya went there with her mum. There in Blackpool she had a try-out dancing with that British man Neil Jones, who she later married.
‘When she came back to Russia from Blackpool she was still attracted to me and I know she quarrelled with her parents about me.
‘She walked out of her house and came to live with me. We lived together at my place for only about a week. I remember her telling me about her new British dancing partner.
‘Finally, she decided to go back to her parents and that was really the end.
‘She was always close to her mother, Tatiana, and her mother invested a lot of time and effort in Katya’s success. I can imagine how hard the choice was for Katya. We loved each other, but sometimes I think that probably we didn’t have a chance.’
He added: ‘It was deeply painful for both of us. As for me, I must say it took me about a year to recover. Katya was my last dancing partner and I have not competed since our split.’
She and Neil built a successful partnership, and are among the most successful dancers of their generation. She was praised for her entertaining routines with Ed Balls in 2016, and won the glitter ball trophy last year with actor Joe McFadden.
A Strictly source said: ‘She had to push Joe to the win with both hands — she is a likeable person, but as hard as nails.’
HER DEVOTED HUBBY IN A FRIZZY, RED WIG
NEIL JONES, born into an Army family, started to dance when he was three and is a highly driven competitor. He and Katya have danced together since 2008 and are the four times undefeated British National Professional Champions. They have also won the World Professional Latin Showdance title.
His immediate response to the brouhaha was to post an Instagram message to praise his wife’s beautiful choreography on Saturday. He went on to share a jaw-dropping image of himself fully naked, reclining on rocks.
It was captioned: ‘It’s Monday and if you don’t mind I’m just going to hang out by the rocks with my smouldering look.’
Wearing a Vera Wang dress, Katya married Neil in London in 2013. She said: ‘I have conversations with the other Strictly girls and they asked me who was my weird crush. I tell them I married my weird crush.’
Their first TV gig was appearing on Britain’s Got Talent with dance troupe Kings & Queens. They reached the semi-finals in 2014. They then got on the Strictly tour in 2015, and while there charmed judge Craig Revel Horwood, who is a kingmaker for the dancers and supported them joining the show.
Neil is a choreographer on the show and has partnered a celebrity in Strictly’s Christmas special, but this year did not get a star partner.
He blames his relative lack of stature — he is 5ft 10in — for the fact that he has so far failed to make it to the celebrated partnerships. He said: ‘I’ve been around the show for so long now, if I have a partner — fantastic. If not, it doesn’t matter.’
He currently teaches a class in ‘Urban Ballroom’ at the Base Dance studios in Lambeth.
He and Katya live in a flat in Wembley, North-West London, with their dog Crumble.
Last year, Neil set up a YouTube channel as Nell De Jaunse — the Frenchified version of his real name seems to be a dig at Anton du Beke, real name Anthony Beke. In it, Neil appears in a frizzy red wig and glasses playing a camp dance instructor, who is assisted by his ‘sister’ Jofina, played by a muscular male friend in a red wig and dress. Again, it’s rather jaw-dropping.
A Strictly source said: ‘Neil is very popular with people on Strictly. Katya is a little reminiscent of Kristina Rihanoff in that she is uber competitive and very flirty. Neil is just a nice guy. He follows her around, holding her handbag and bringing her drinks.’
Unlike his wife, Neil apparently doesn’t think the scandal matters at all, dismissing it as a storm in a teacup.