EXCLUSIVE: Strictly bosses sparked fury after they crowned their new 2025 Christmas champions.

Scarlett Moffatt and Vito Coppola won the Christmas Strictly special 2025 (Image: PA)

Strictly Come Dancing bosses reportedly “broke” a long-standing rule for the Christmas special, a former pro dancer claims. During the Christmas Day special, six new celebrities took to the beloved dance floor to battle it out to lift the Christmas glitterball trophy. For the festive special, Melanie Blatt, Scarlette Moffatt, Brian McFadden, Babatunde Aléshé, Nicholas Bailey, and Jodie Ounsley took to the stage for the Christmas extravaganza.

At the end of the show, it was Gogglebox star Scarlette Moffatt and Vito Coppola who lifted the trophy, usurping last year’s winners, drag queen Tayce and Kai Widdrington. Her involvement in the show sparked anger among Strictly fans due to her immense background in ballroom and Latin dancing.

Before finding fame on the Channel 4 commentary show, Moffatt was a gifted dancer, having won numerous ballroom competitions across the UK. The star was even trained by one of the show’s judges, Anton du Beke, as a child, and previously admitted that she would have an “unfair advantage” if she ever did Strictly.

Writing in her autobiography, My Life Story: Sofa, So Good! in 2017, she confessed: “I’d love to go on Strictly, but I just don’t think they’d let me on. I’m basically a ringer, as I’ve danced against some of the professionals in competitions when I was younger.”

Despite this, the star stormed to victory on the show, sparking disappointment from fans online. Now, former pro dancer James Jordan has revealed that BBC bosses may have broken one of their longest-standing rules by booking her on the show.

Speaking exclusively to Express.co.uk on behalf of Freebets.com, the home of new casino sites, the TV presenter urged BBC bosses to bring the show back to its roots. He told us: “We were always told as a rule, if you’ve had ballroom and Latin dance training, you can’t do the show.

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Scarlett Moffatt trained as a ballroom dancer as a child (Image: Instagram)

“It doesn’t necessarily mean you’re going to be as good a dancer as someone like Lewis [Cope] or Amber [Davies] just because you’ve had a few ballroom and Latin dance lessons, because they’re still fully trained dancers, but you’ve still got an advantage over the non-dancers.

“But the argument doesn’t really work. I just think the level of dance training that they bring into the show needs to be kept properly in check. Because back in the day, they never knew who had dance training, they just used to book names.

“But now they do. They do their research. They have potential celebs come in, and they get a pro to come in and do some dancing with them before the show starts. So they know if they’re good, I’ve done it myself.”

The dad-of-one went on to share some of the trials the casts goes through before being booked on the show. He added: “They’ve told me, ‘Can you come in and try out with a few celebrities. We want to see if they have the potential to do the show.”

“And I know they still do that, but maybe they should stop doing that so it becomes more like a lottery, like it used to be. Make it carnage, that was the beauty of the show.

“Make it a bit more of a surprise for everyone, including the producers and the pros. Let’s pair them up first, then get them in the studio and go, ‘Right, we’re going to do a group dance’.”

Express.co.uk has contacted a BBC representative for a comment. The Christmas special marked the final show for long-term hosts Claudia Winkleman and Tess Daly, who have fronted the show for 21 years. Fans will have to wait and see what changes will come with the new series in autumn 2026.