Johannes Radebe responds after John Whaite reveals he fell in love with Strictly pro

Strictly Come Dancing star Johannes Radebe says he is “associates for all times” with his former dance associate John Whaite, after Whaite revealed that he fell in love with Radebe throughout their time collectively on the present.

Whaite, who rose to fame as a winner on The Nice British Bake Off, was partnered with South African skilled dancer Radebe in 2021 for the BBC sequence’ first ever same-sex pairing.

The duo rapidly turned a fan-favourite because of their evident chemistry each on and off the dancefloor. They in the end completed in second place, with EastEnders actor Rose Ayling-Ellis successful the competition with her skilled associate, Giovanni Pernice.

In a current interview, Whaite revealed that he frolicked aside from his fiancé and associate of 15 years, Paul Atkins, after “falling in love” with Radebe. He has since obtained again collectively with Atkins.

“I fell in love with [Radebe],” Whaite advised The Occasions. “I can’t converse for him – as a result of I’m not allowed to, legally – but it surely felt like there was love there.”

In an interview printed on Saturday 26 August, Radebe addressed Whaite’s current revelation, apparently “eager” to emphasize “the platonic nature of their connection”.

“Now we have gone on to have such an exquisite expertise collectively that it will be a disgrace if we weren’t associates after all that,” he advised The Times.

“What we agreed is that, no matter what life throws at us, we are going to all the time preserve [this friendship] going. ‘We’re associates for all times,’ I all the time say to him. ‘I do know the place you reside. You can not do away with me.’ I nonetheless converse to him.”

In Whaite’s interview, he defined that he mentioned his emotions with Atkins from the start.: “Paul of all folks deserved to know how I used to be feeling,” he mentioned. “You undergo life being advised that you just’ll fall in love with somebody, you’ll get married, you’ll have kids and that’s it.

“However love can’t simply be directed to at least one particular person. The guts can simply cut up into two or three or 4. And people loves aren’t mutually unique.”

Nonetheless, the couple are again collectively, and Whaite says he now deliberately retains his distance from Radebes as “I’ve to be aware that there’s greater than my very own needs to think about right here”.

“If it will be tough for Paul for me to be in contact with Johannes, then it’s a sacrifice that I’ve to make,” he mentioned.

Showing on ITV daytime present Lorraine on Thursday 24 August, Whaite joked that it was “blooming nice that the gays are getting embroiled in the Strictly scandal”.

“As a result of earlier than, we have been simply on the sidelines, however now, the gays are concerned in the Strictly curse. So for me, this can be a signal of progress,” he mentioned.

He defined that he had determined to share his expertise, with Radebe and Atkins’ consent, to “illustrate the purpose that life is troublesome”.

“We’re fragile human beings and our hearts generally could be torn into two, and generally it’s a must to take inventory and simply assume to your self, ‘Who am I, what [are] my values, and the way do I get again to that?’

“And the purpose of the entire e book is a narrative of love. It’s about displaying folks, anybody at residence, it’s okay to be a weak human being, to make a multitude and to start out once more,” he continued. “You may all the time begin once more.

With out his partnership with Atkin, Whaite advised host Christine Lampard, “I don’t know the place I might be in life”.

Each Whaite and Radebe have written books about their time on Strictly; Jojo: Lastly Dwelling by Radebe is launched on 7 September.

The brand new sequence of Strictly Come Dancing is scheduled to start in September. Examine this 12 months’s lineup of contestants right here.