Strictly star Toyah Willcox reveals she refused to dance with two pros due to ‘inappropriate’ age gap

Vito and Nikita were sidelined for Neil…

Before pairing with Neil Jones, Strictly Come Dancing star Toyah Willcox rejected two popular professional dancers because of their age.

The singer was eliminated from the dancing reality show in the second week after a dance-off against Paul Merson.

In a recent interview ahead of the Strictly finale on Saturday (December 14), Toyah revealed who she was originally paired with, before teaming up with Neil.

Toyah was happy with being paired with Neil (Credit: BBC)

Toyah Willcox’s dance partners

It turns out 66-year-old singer just wasn’t keen on pairing with men way younger than her. Before landing Neil, 42, she was asked to pair with Vito Coppola, 32, and Nikita Kuzmin, 26.

She declined to dance with them owing to the massive age gap she shared with both dancers. Toyah quipped that if there was one thing she didn’t want, it was a “young person’s head near my crotch”. She also added she didn’t want hers near theirs either!

Toyah refused to be paired with Vito on Strictly due to his age (Credit: Splash News)
The singer-songwriter described this year’s audition for Strictly as a “nerve-wracking process”, yet she was “grateful” to have been picked by Vito. However, she couldn’t imagine dancing intimately with a man decades younger than her.

I would have hated to do an intimate dance with someone that young.

Following her audition with Vito, she told Strictly it would’ve felt ‘inappropriate’ to dance with him.

She said: “I did not want to dance with someone when there was a 40-year age discrepancy. I’d have hated to do an intimate dance with someone that young. I said I really want to be age-appropriate and dance with someone who is right for my physicality.

“I was then asked if I would dance with Nikita and I just said: ‘Look, it’s going to look so wrong,’” she told The Daily Mail.

As for Neil, who is 42 years old, Toyah was comfortable having him as her dance partner and also “trusted” him. She also believed he’s had the same mental experiences as her.

Nikita is 40 years younger than Toyah (Credit: Splash News)

Toyah hails her fitness

Despite leaving the competition early, Toyah credits the show’s seven hours of training each day for helping her feel the fittest she’s been in 20 years.

Avoiding carbs, she ate healthy and worked out vigorously. This helped her get back in the “same shape” she was when she was aged 23.

“I managed to exhaust Neil, which he will never accept but I could keep going for 24 hours and, in the end, after about six hours he would say: ‘Now, you do it on your own,’ and he would stand and watch me. And I realised that I had completely knackered him, which I loved,” she said.