Ellie Leach won Strictly Come Dancing 2023 on 16 December 2023, partnered with Italian professional dancer Vito Coppola, becoming the youngest celebrity ever to lift the Glitterball Trophy at just 22 years old — beating the previous record held by Olympic gymnast Louis Smith, who was 23 when he won Series 10. The former Coronation Street actress, best known for playing Faye Windass on the ITV soap for 12 years, entered the competition just months after her character was axed by the show and her five-year relationship ended — and transformed herself over thirteen extraordinary weeks from a relative dance beginner into a champion who won the public vote despite finishing third on the judges’ scoreboard in the final behind Layton Williams and Bobby Brazier. Her win with Vito Coppola was one of the most emotionally resonant in Strictly’s twenty-one-series history, driven by her natural talent, extraordinary work ethic, unmistakable joy on the dancefloor, and the chemistry she shared with her partner throughout. In this comprehensive guide you will find everything about Ellie Leach and Strictly Come Dancing 2023 — her week-by-week journey, all her dances and scores, the final in full, her life before and after the show, her relationship with Vito Coppola, her post-Strictly career, and answers to every question fans are searching for.
Who Is Ellie Leach?
Early Life and Background
Ellie Louise Leach was born on 15 March 2001 in Bury, Greater Manchester, into a family with a strong connection to the entertainment industry. She attended Fairfield High School for Girls and from an early age demonstrated both the aptitude and ambition to pursue a career in acting — a path she began pursuing through television commercials and small screen roles long before the age of ten. She is a cousin of Brooke Vincent, who played Sophie Webster in Coronation Street between 2004 and 2019, meaning the overlap between the Leach family and the Coronation Street world is not coincidental but familial — a remarkable piece of soap opera heritage that gives Ellie’s own Coronation Street story an added layer of personal significance.
She developed an early interest in acting and began her career with television advertisements and minor roles before landing the breakout part on Coronation Street at age nine. Leach began her television career appearing in television advertisements for Staples and McDonald’s. In 2009, she appeared in the film A Boy Called Dad, which premiered at the Edinburgh Film Festival. In 2010, she appeared in an episode of Moving On as Stacy — an anthology drama broadcast on BBC One. These early credits — a feature film that premiered at the Edinburgh Film Festival, a drama anthology appearance, commercial work — suggest a child actor whose trajectory was already pointing upward before the opportunity of a lifetime arrived at age nine.
Twelve Years as Faye Windass
In 2011, she was cast in the role of Faye Butler, a potential adoptive child for Anna (Debbie Rush) and Eddie Windass (Steve Huison) on the ITV soap opera Coronation Street. The role would define the next twelve years of her life — and make her one of the most recognisable young faces in British soap opera. During her 12-year tenure on the show, Leach’s character navigated storylines involving teenage pregnancy, cyberbullying, and family dynamics, earning her several British Soap Award nominations. Faye Windass — renamed from Faye Butler after her adoption — became one of Coronation Street’s most substantial young character arcs.
She experienced teenage pregnancy in a storyline that was praised for its sensitive and realistic portrayal; she was falsely imprisoned after a case of mistaken identity in a storyline that tested Ellie’s dramatic range considerably; she dealt with a premature menopause diagnosis; and she experienced the full spectrum of family drama that the Coronation Street cobblestones can offer. To play such a rich and demanding character continuously from the age of nine to twenty-one, while maintaining the naturalism and emotional truth that the most demanding soap storylines require, speaks to considerable acting ability that the Strictly experience would later confirm in a completely different context. She remained in the role from 2011 through to July 2023 — a continuous twelve-year run that put her among the longest-serving current members of the Coronation Street cast.
The Exit from Coronation Street
In April 2023, it was confirmed that Leach would be leaving Coronation Street after 12 years in the role of Faye, with her departure scenes set to air in a “huge story” in July 2023. It was initially reported that Leach had chosen to leave Coronation Street but would not be killed-off, leaving the door open for the actress and the character to return in the future. However, Leach later confirmed the show’s bosses had told her they could “see no future for the character” resulting in her role being axed.
The manner of her exit — publicly described initially as a voluntary decision but later confirmed as an involuntary axing — was a difficult moment for a young actress who had spent her entire professional life in one role. The departure of Faye Windass in July 2023 coincided almost exactly with the end of Ellie’s five-year relationship with Reagan Pettman, which ended in May 2023 amid widely reported allegations that she had been cheated on. The convergence of losing her job, her relationship, and the identity she had built over twelve years within the space of a few months in 2023 created a period of genuine vulnerability that makes her subsequent Strictly triumph all the more significant. She arrived at the Strictly doors, as she has put it, with a great deal to prove — both to herself and to an industry that had, in a sense, just told her it didn’t need her.
Strictly Come Dancing 2023: The Complete Journey
Joining the 2023 Series
Following her exit from Coronation Street, Leach signed up to appear as a contestant on the twenty-first series of the BBC dance competition Strictly Come Dancing. She was partnered with professional Vito Coppola and the pair went on to win the competition. The announcement of Ellie Leach as part of the 2023 Strictly line-up generated immediate excitement among fans who remembered her from Coronation Street and who were curious about whether the young actress could dance. Her pairing with Vito Coppola — the Italian-born professional dancer who had joined the Strictly pro line-up in 2022 and who was entering his second series — was met with enthusiasm when it was revealed in the programme’s first episode.
The 2023 Strictly series ran from September to December 2023 and featured one of the strongest celebrity line-ups in recent memory, including EastEnders actor Bobby Brazier, musical theatre performer Layton Williams, comedian Zoe Ball, newsreader Angela Rippon, journalist Krishnan Guru-Murthy, and Love Island star Zara McDermott. The standard of dancing across the series was widely praised by judges and audiences alike, making the competition genuinely fierce and Ellie’s eventual victory all the more noteworthy. The series had thirteen competitive weeks plus the final, with a typically diverse roster of styles that challenged every celebrity contestant to demonstrate range as well as technique.
Vito Coppola: Her Professional Partner
Vito Coppola was born on 6 June 1992 in Napoli, Italy, and has been dancing competitively since early childhood. He became the European Latin Dancing champion in 2016 — one of the most prestigious titles in competitive ballroom and Latin, reflecting years of elite-level training and competition. He joined the Italian Dancing with the Stars (Ballando con le Stelle) professional team before moving to the UK version, joining Strictly Come Dancing in 2022. His debut season, paired with singer Fleur East, produced a runner-up finish and confirmed that he was one of Strictly’s most creative and emotionally engaged professional dancers.
The chemistry between Ellie and Vito was evident from the very first week of competition. Their natural rapport — playful, warm, and built on obvious genuine affection — translated into performances that audiences found compelling not merely for the dancing quality but for the emotional authenticity with which both partners approached each routine. Vito would later describe Ellie as “the diamond I was talking about” in his post-victory interview, and the language of discovery and transformation that characterised his references to their partnership throughout the series spoke to a genuine investment in her development that went beyond the purely professional. His coaching style — encouraging, technically precise, and clearly attuned to his partner’s emotional state — was perfectly suited to what Ellie needed in the autumn of 2023.
Week-by-Week Performance Highlights
Ellie and Vito’s Strictly journey featured a series of standout performances across the competition’s thirteen weeks that built progressively in technical complexity, emotional range, and public support.
Their Week 1 Cha Cha to “Try Again” by Destiny’s Child announced Ellie’s natural sense of rhythm and performance confidence — qualities that the judges noted immediately, with Shirley Ballas commenting on her “star quality.” The Week 3 Salsa was identified as a standout of their early run, showcasing Ellie’s ability to execute high-energy Latin dances with a joy and physical commitment that partners twice her age would struggle to match.
The Week 7 Tango — to “Disturbia” by Rihanna — was widely considered their first truly elite performance: technically sharp, dramatically committed, and showing the kind of theatrical intelligence that transforms a dance routine into a performance. It earned scores in the high thirties from the judges and triggered a significant surge in public voting support. Their Week 9 American Smooth, danced to a classic Robbie Williams song, demonstrated the opposite end of their range — elegant, restrained, and emotionally tender in a way that confirmed Ellie’s versatility as a dancer.
The semi-final Contemporary Couples’ Choice was perhaps the most artistically ambitious routine of the entire series — a genre-defying piece that blended ballet-influenced movement with emotional storytelling and earned standing ovations from the judging panel. It was praised not merely as a dance performance but as a piece of genuine artistic expression, using movement to convey an emotional journey in ways that resonated deeply with both the live studio audience and the millions watching at home. The performance confirmed that Ellie was not merely a technically improving celebrity contestant but a genuine performing artist finding a new medium.
Other 2023 Contestants and Context
The 2023 series featured a particularly varied and high-profile cast that set a very competitive standard against which Ellie’s journey can be appreciated. Bobby Brazier — son of Jeff Brazier and the late Jade Goody — was one of the most emotionally discussed contestants of the series, dedicating his final show dance to his late mother. His EastEnders background gave him natural camera awareness and performance confidence that made him one of the most technically accomplished celebrity contestants of the series. Layton Williams, the musical theatre professional known for Bad Education, brought a performance background that made him technically the most impressive celebrity dancer of the year — his total of 119 final judges’ points reflected genuine technical mastery.
The contrast between these three finalists — Layton’s technical excellence, Bobby’s emotional storytelling, and Ellie’s extraordinary audience connection — created one of the most dramatic and contested Strictly finals in many years. The public vote’s decisive role in producing a result that differed from the judges’ assessment was a reminder that Strictly is ultimately a public entertainment programme rather than a dance competition, and that the qualities audiences value — warmth, relatability, the sense of genuine transformation — are not always the ones most directly measurable in judges’ scores.
Notable 2023 departures included the first week elimination of actor Les Dennis with partner Nancy Xu; Love Island contestant Zara McDermott and her partner Graziano Di Prima leaving in Week 6; and The Bill star Nigel Harman withdrawing from the series on medical grounds after sustaining a rib injury. Annabel Croft, the tennis legend, was eliminated in the semi-final after placing in the bottom two against Bobby Brazier — one of the most emotionally charged elimination moments of the series, given that she had dedicated her Strictly journey to her husband who had died earlier in the year.
The Strictly 2023 Final: A Complete Account
The Final Evening
The 2023 Strictly Come Dancing final was broadcast live on BBC One on Saturday, 16 December 2023, from Elstree Studios in Hertfordshire. The final brought together three couples: Ellie Leach and Vito Coppola, Bobby Brazier and Dianne Buswell, and Layton Williams and Nikita Kuzmin. The judges for the final were the regular panel of Shirley Ballas (head judge), Craig Revel Horwood, Motsi Mabuse, and Anton Du Beke, with Tess Daly and Claudia Winkleman co-presenting.
Each couple performed three dances: a judges’ choice (a dance style selected for them by the panel), a show dance (a free-format creation allowing maximum creative expression), and a favourite from their series back catalogue. The combination of competitive dance, emotional farewell speeches, and the public vote announcement made for one of the most watched Saturday night programmes of the year.
Ellie and Vito’s Three Final Dances
Leach and Coppola’s first performance of the night was their dramatic paso doble to “Insomnia” by 2WEI, as chosen for them by the judges. Head judge Shirley Ballas told Leach: “You, my dear, are the only lady standing and let me tell you, you came down those stairs, you worked that dress, the whole ensemble… was spot on.” Anton Du Beke added “I love this”, and Craig Revel Horwood said the dance “was absolutely fantastic.” The paso doble is one of the most technically demanding and theatrically intense of all ballroom dances, and Ellie’s ability to project the power and authority the dance requires — particularly in its dramatic opening section — was widely praised.
For their show dance, the couple performed a Jennifer Lopez megamix and Leach was praised for taking a “risk” with a lift that she was unable to execute. Revel Horwood told Leach: “It’s a terrible shame with the last lift because really that whole dance routine was just flawless up until that moment. ‘That’s the sort of beauty of live television, I think, and proving that taking a risk can or can’t work out for you.” The willingness to attempt a difficult lift in the most-watched dance of the series, rather than taking the safer option, was broadly regarded by commentators as a sign of competitive ambition and artistic courage. The judge’s framing of it as “the beauty of live television” was generous but genuine — the risk, while unexecuted, was not a failure of preparation but a competitive choice.
Their third and final performance, which they chose from their back catalogue of performances, was the American smooth to the song “Ain’t That A Kick In The Head” in the style of Robbie Williams. After the dance, Du Beke said he was “getting emotional” before he told the soap star he was proud of her. The choice of the American smooth as their signature performance reflected both its original impact and Ellie’s demonstrated affinity for the style — the elegance, the musicality, and the classic Hollywood quality of the dance suited her performance sensibility beautifully.
The Public Vote Victory
On the judges’ scoreboard, Williams and Kuzmin had been in the lead with a total of 119 points. Second to them was Brazier and Buswell who had received 117 points, and they were followed by Leach and Coppola with 115 — who cinched the trophy with the help of the public. The public vote’s power to overturn the judges’ assessment in the final is one of Strictly’s defining structural features, and in 2023 it produced its most dramatic application in years.
Ellie and Vito’s victory by public vote over two competitors who had scored significantly higher on the judges’ scoreboard reflected the depth of the emotional investment that millions of viewers had built up over thirteen weeks of watching Ellie’s journey. The combination of her personal circumstances (the axed role, the ended relationship), her genuinely visible improvement week by week, the warmth and joy she brought to every performance, and the authenticity of her relationship with Vito created a public connection that translated into the decisive votes when they were most needed.
Ellie Leach and Vito Coppola: Their Bond
Professional Partners, Genuine Friends
The relationship between Ellie Leach and Vito Coppola has been one of the most discussed aspects of their Strictly story, given the visible warmth and closeness of their on-screen partnership and the natural curiosity of audiences about whether their obvious chemistry extended beyond the professional. Both Ellie and Vito have been consistent and clear in their public statements: they are extremely close friends, they care deeply about each other, and their relationship is a genuine and important friendship — but it is not a romantic one. Ellie has discussed the relationship with characteristic directness in interviews, acknowledging the warmth and closeness of the bond while being unambiguous that they are friends rather than a couple.
The nature of the Strictly partnership — intensive daily training over three to four months, the physical closeness of ballroom and Latin dance, the emotional vulnerability that serious artistic practice requires, and the shared experience of live performance under enormous public pressure — inevitably produces unusual bonds. The “Strictly curse” (the phenomenon of romantic relationships developing between partners during the series) is a recurring media narrative, and Ellie and Vito’s partnership attracted this narrative partly because of their obvious connection and partly because Ellie had entered the competition recently single after her five-year relationship ended.
The clarity with which both Ellie and Vito have communicated about their relationship deserves respect: they have not denied the closeness of their bond, nor have they permitted ambiguity to be read into their friendship for clickbait purposes. Their social media relationship — mutual support, shared posts, and the maintenance of a visible friendship — reflects a genuine ongoing connection between two people who shared an extraordinary experience and have continued to value each other’s company and support afterwards.
Life After Strictly: Ellie’s Career in 2024–2026
The Strictly Live Tour 2024
In early 2024, she joined the Strictly Come Dancing Live Tour, performing alongside fellow contestants like Angela Rippon and Layton Williams across UK arenas, where she and Coppola reprised routines such as their paso doble to “Don’t You Worry Child” by Swedish House Mafia. The Strictly Live Tour is one of the most commercially successful touring dance productions in the UK, taking the Strictly format into arenas and giving audiences who could not attend the television recording the opportunity to see the professional quality dancing in a live environment. The 2024 tour included approximately 35 dates at venues including the Utilita Arena Birmingham, the OVO Arena Wembley, and the AO Arena Manchester.
For Ellie, the tour was both an extension of the Strictly experience and an early test of whether her appeal translated from the television screen to the live arena — and the audience response confirmed that it did. Performing to arena-sized crowds in venues holding 10,000–20,000 people requires a different performance energy from the television studio at Elstree, and Ellie’s ability to fill those spaces with the warmth and dynamism that had won the Glitterball Trophy confirmed that her talent was not contingent on the specific conditions of the Strictly format.
Drama Queens (ITVBe, 2024)
In 2024, Leach appeared as herself in the ITVBe reality series Drama Queens, which followed the lives of former soap stars including her Coronation Street co-stars Brooke Vincent and Lucy Fallon. Drama Queens gave Ellie an opportunity to present herself in a broader context than either soap opera acting or competitive dance — as a young woman navigating life after a long-running television role, processing the personal events of 2023, and building a new professional identity with the support of friends and family. The series gave audiences the most unguarded and personal view of Ellie Leach to that point, showing her outside of both the Coronation Street character she had played for twelve years and the Strictly competitor narrative.
Media scrutiny has intensified around Leach’s personal life, particularly following her 2024 breakup, with tabloids extensively covering the cheating allegations and Pettman’s public apologies, which she described as emotionally taxing in Drama Queens. Her willingness to engage with these topics authentically in a reality format, rather than presenting a polished celebrity persona, was characteristic of the openness that had made her so appealing to Strictly audiences.
Channel 5 Crime Drama (2025)
In 2025, Leach joined the cast of the Channel 5 crime drama series — a development that signals her ambition to rebuild a serious acting career in scripted drama beyond the soap opera world in which she spent her formative professional years. A Channel 5 prime-time crime drama represents a meaningful step up in terms of dramatic profile from the soap opera background: it requires a different register of performance (naturalistic, film-influenced rather than the heightened theatrical quality of soap), a different working rhythm (episodic rather than daily production), and places her in a context where she will be evaluated purely on her acting ability rather than on audience familiarity from Coronation Street.
The transition from soap opera to drama is one of the most challenging in British acting, with many long-running soap actors finding that audience pigeonholing in their soap role makes the transition difficult. Ellie’s Strictly triumph has helped to reframe her public identity in a way that separates her from the Faye Windass association, and her Channel 5 drama credit is a significant step in the construction of a post-soap career that can stand on its own merits.
Game Shows and Television Appearances
Leach participated in a celebrity special of ITV’s quiz show The Chase in 2024, teaming up with contestants Karim Zeroual, Christopher Biggins, and Des Clarke to compete against the Chaser. She served as a celebrity guest helper on the BBC game show The Wheel in 2024, assisting contestants in answering trivia questions to win cash prizes. In October 2025, Leach appeared as a contestant on BBC Two’s quiz show Richard Osman’s House of Games during Series 9, Week 2, competing with Yinka Bokinni, Vicki Michelle, and Peter Serafinowicz.
These game show appearances represent the light entertainment component of her post-Strictly profile, building mainstream recognition across demographics and demonstrating her versatility as a television personality beyond the specific dance competition context. Richard Osman’s House of Games is watched by a wide BBC Two audience, and her October 2025 appearance further extended the Strictly-driven expansion of her public profile.
Personal Life
The Relationship with Reagan Pettman
Ellie Leach was in a relationship with Reagan Pettman for approximately five years before the couple split in May 2023 — just two months before her Coronation Street departure and three months before she began the Strictly journey. Pettman subsequently made public apologies regarding the circumstances of the relationship’s end — which were connected to cheating allegations widely reported in the tabloid media — and Ellie addressed the matter in Drama Queens with a combination of directness and emotional dignity that resonated strongly with viewers. The timing of the relationship’s end — so close to her Coronation Street axing — created a period of genuine difficulty and personal disruption that provides important context for understanding the emotional journey that underpinned her Strictly performances.
The convergence of losing her long-term job and her long-term relationship within the same few months meant that Ellie arrived at Strictly in a state of significant personal transition. She has spoken about this period with admirable honesty, acknowledging that the Strictly experience served as both a distraction from the difficulties of that period and a genuine transformative experience that rebuilt her confidence and her sense of what she was capable of. The emotional authenticity of her performances throughout the series — the joy that was not merely performed but clearly felt, the growth that was not staged but clearly real — can only be fully understood in this context.
Family Connections and Social Media
Ellie Leach’s family — particularly her cousin Brooke Vincent — have been consistent supportive presences throughout her public life. Leach is a cousin of Brooke Vincent, who played Sophie Webster in Coronation Street between 2004 and 2019. The family connection to Brooke Vincent, who appeared regularly as a supportive figure during Ellie’s Strictly journey and in Drama Queens, provides Ellie with both a personal support network within the entertainment industry and a point of connection with the Coronation Street community that nurtured her for twelve years.
She maintains a strong social media presence on Instagram, where her account (@ellielouiseleach) has grown significantly post-Strictly, with 2025 posts highlighting travels to places like Phuket and Camogli, family moments, and behind-the-scenes glimpses of her life, amassing hundreds of thousands of followers. Her social media reflects the personality that made her such a compelling Strictly contestant: warm, humorous, occasionally self-deprecating, and genuinely engaged with the people who follow her. Leach has emphasised handling privacy by selectively sharing personal updates while setting boundaries, as seen in her responses to fan interactions where she has addressed criticisms about life choices at age 24.
Practical Guide: Watching and Following Ellie Leach
Where to Watch Ellie’s Strictly Journey
Strictly Come Dancing 2023, including Ellie Leach and Vito Coppola’s complete competition journey, is available to watch on BBC iPlayer — the BBC’s free on-demand streaming service available to anyone in the UK with a TV licence. The entire series, including all weekly programmes, results shows, and the final broadcast on 16 December 2023, is accessible via the BBC iPlayer website (bbc.co.uk/iplayer) or the BBC iPlayer app, which is available on smartphones, tablets, smart TVs, and web browsers. BBC iPlayer is free to use for UK residents with a valid TV licence; the current cost of a TV licence as of 2026 is £174.50 per year.
Individual week highlight compilations, the best routines from the 2023 series, and Ellie and Vito’s standout performances are also available on the Strictly Come Dancing official YouTube channel — free to access worldwide without any subscription requirement. Their semi-final Couples’ Choice Contemporary, their Week 7 Tango, and all three of their final dances are among the most-searched and most-watched clips from the 2023 series.
The Strictly Live Tour: Tickets and Information
For fans who want to see Strictly dancers perform live, the Strictly Come Dancing Live Tour takes place across the UK every January and February, following the conclusion of each television series. The tour visits approximately 35 venues across England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland, including the OVO Arena Wembley (London), the AO Arena Manchester, the Utilita Arena Birmingham, the First Direct Arena Leeds, and the P&J Live Aberdeen. Tickets typically go on sale in October, ahead of the following January’s tour dates.
Ticket prices for the Strictly Live Tour range from approximately £35 for standard seating to approximately £100 for premium and VIP packages, depending on the venue and the specific package. VIP packages typically include priority entry, a programme, and — at some venues — a meet-and-greet opportunity with professional dancers. The official booking portal is the Strictly Come Dancing website (bbc.co.uk/strictlycomedancing) and the individual venue booking pages; booking through official channels is strongly recommended to avoid secondary market premiums.
Social Media and How to Follow Ellie
Ellie Leach’s primary social media account is Instagram, where she posts under @ellielouiseleach. Her account has grown significantly post-Strictly and offers a genuine behind-the-scenes glimpse of her professional and personal life. For news about upcoming television appearances, drama projects, and personal updates, following Ellie directly on Instagram provides the most direct and reliable source of information. She is also active on TikTok, where Strictly-related content and behind-the-scenes clips from her various projects have generated significant engagement with a younger audience demographic.
About Strictly Come Dancing
The Show’s History and Format
Strictly Come Dancing is the BBC’s flagship Saturday night entertainment programme, a celebrity ballroom and Latin dance competition that has been broadcast since 2004 and has consistently been one of the most watched programmes on British television. The format pairs celebrity contestants with professional dancers for a season of weekly competition in which each couple performs a different dance style — Waltz, Quickstep, Tango, Cha Cha, Samba, Paso Doble, Argentine Tango, American Smooth, Jive, Viennese Waltz, Foxtrot, and others — before a panel of four judges assesses their performances and the viewing public votes to decide who stays and who is eliminated.
The 2023 series was the twenty-first, broadcast on BBC One with Tess Daly and Claudia Winkleman as co-presenters. The judging panel consisted of head judge Shirley Ballas, Craig Revel Horwood, Motsi Mabuse, and Anton Du Beke. The programme is broadcast from Elstree Studios in Borehamwood, Hertfordshire, on Saturday evenings (the performance show) with a results show on Sunday evenings. The series typically runs from late September through to a December final.
The 2023 series attracted average audiences of approximately 6–8 million viewers per episode across its run — figures that place it consistently among the most-watched programmes on British television and confirm its status as a genuine national cultural event rather than merely a popular television programme.
Previous Youngest Strictly Winners
Ellie Leach’s record as the youngest Strictly winner contextualises her victory within the show’s broader history. The previous record holder was Louis Smith, the Olympic gymnast who won Series 10 in 2012 at the age of 23 — just one year older than Ellie’s 22. Before Louis Smith, the youngest finalists had typically been in their mid-to-late twenties. The trend toward younger celebrity contestants who can genuinely compete with and beat more experienced performers reflects the evolution of the celebrity pool available to the show and the increasingly high base level of performance skill the show demands. Ellie’s victory at 22 — from a background in soap opera acting rather than dance, sports, or musical theatre — represents one of the most dramatic improvements-per-week of any winner in recent series.
The Strictly Judges: Their Reactions to Ellie
Shirley Ballas: “Star Quality”
Head judge Shirley Ballas was one of the most vocal and consistent advocates for Ellie Leach’s dancing across the 2023 series, repeatedly identifying qualities in her performance that suggested a natural dancing ability beyond what her background would have predicted. Ballas, a former World Latin Dance Champion who has judged on Strictly since 2017, is known for her exacting technical standards and her willingness to deliver frank criticism of celebrity contestants whose performances fall below what she expects. Her repeated praise of Ellie — and particularly her assessment in the final that Ellie “worked that dress” and delivered a paso doble that was “spot on” — carried the authority of a professional who knew exactly what she was watching.
Throughout the series, Ballas used language about Ellie that distinguished her from the majority of celebrity contestants: words like “star quality,” “natural performer,” and “exceptional” appeared in her scorecards and comments with a regularity that confirmed the head judge was seeing something genuinely unusual in the youngest finalist. The relationship between Shirley Ballas and Ellie Leach was warm and encouraging throughout the competition — Ballas’s tendency to protect and encourage contestants she identifies as genuinely talented was clearly engaged by Ellie from the early weeks of the series.
Craig Revel Horwood: Demanding but Fair
Craig Revel Horwood, the judge most associated with Strictly’s most critical assessments and the most theatrical delivery of negative feedback, found his relationship with Ellie evolving across the series in a way that reflected her genuine improvement. Early weeks saw him offering the kind of technical observations about footwork and posture that he applies to every celebrity contestant; by the semi-final and final, his tone had shifted substantially — acknowledging the quality of her performances while maintaining the technical precision that characterises his judging. His final night assessment of the show dance — noting the “terrible shame” of the lift while affirming the quality of everything that preceded it — struck the balance between technical honesty and genuine appreciation that represents Revel Horwood at his most useful as a judge.
His post-final comments about Ellie were notably warm for a judge whose on-screen persona is built primarily around withholding approval, and the contrast between his characteristically acerbic style and his genuine appreciation for what Ellie achieved across the series was one of the small pleasures of following her journey week by week.
Anton Du Beke: Emotional Champion
Anton Du Beke, the longest-serving professional dancer in Strictly’s history who transitioned to the judging panel in 2021, was perhaps the most visibly moved judge by Ellie’s final night performances. His statement that he was “getting emotional” after her American smooth, and his direct expression that he was “proud of her,” transcended the usual language of judging and entered the realm of personal endorsement that Du Beke — who understands better than anyone on the panel what the Strictly experience demands of its celebrity contestants — reserved for performances he considered genuinely exceptional. Du Beke had watched hundreds of celebrity contestants across his decades on the show; his emotional response to Ellie’s journey was a meaningful indicator of its quality.
Ellie Leach’s Acting Awards and Recognition
British Soap Award Nominations
During her twelve-year run on Coronation Street, Ellie Leach received multiple British Soap Award nominations for her portrayal of Faye Windass — recognition from the industry’s primary awards body for soap opera performance that confirmed the quality of her acting beyond mere audience popularity. The British Soap Awards, voted for by viewers, are one of the most meaningful barometers of public appreciation for soap acting performance, and repeated nominations across multiple years confirmed that audiences consistently identified Ellie’s work as among the most impressive on the programme.
The specific storylines that generated the most award recognition included her portrayal of Faye’s teenage pregnancy — a storyline that required sustained, naturalistic performance across multiple months of broadcast and that was praised by critics and welfare organisations alike for its sensitive and realistic treatment of a difficult subject. Winning a single soap award nomination is a meaningful achievement; winning multiple across several different storylines confirms a sustained standard of performance rather than a one-off strong week.
The Strictly Effect on Her Industry Standing
The victory on Strictly Come Dancing changed Ellie Leach’s industry standing in ways that extend beyond the entertainment value of winning a dance competition. The Glitterball Trophy is one of the most culturally visible prizes in British television, and winning it in one of the show’s most-watched finals of recent years generated a level of mainstream attention that most soap actors — however talented — rarely receive outside the soap world itself. The combination of the performance achievement (improving from beginner to champion in thirteen weeks), the personal narrative (rebuilding herself after professional and personal loss), and the public connection (winning by public vote over higher-scored competitors) created a media story that took her well beyond the core Strictly and soap opera fanbase.
Industry observers noted that her post-Strictly bookings — including the Channel 5 drama, the Comedy Women in Print Prize judging, and the multiple light entertainment appearances — reflected a broadened perception of her capabilities and potential. In a British television industry that has traditionally struggled to create pathways for former soap actors to transition into mainstream primetime drama and entertainment, Ellie’s post-Strictly trajectory has been more successful than most, and the Glitterball is a significant part of why.
Why Ellie Won: The Deeper Analysis
The Public Vote Psychology
The mechanics of Ellie Leach’s Strictly 2023 victory are straightforwardly explained by the public vote. But understanding why the public voted for her — over two competitors who scored higher on the judges’ panel and who had, by technical measures, performed better on the final night — requires a deeper analysis of what Strictly audiences respond to and why.
The research on British reality show voting patterns consistently shows that the public responds most strongly to authenticity, transformation, and emotional connection — in that order. Ellie’s authenticity was evident from the first episode: she was not trying to present a polished celebrity persona but was genuinely herself, nervous, excited, and clearly out of her comfort zone but thrilled to be there. Her transformation was one of the most dramatic of the series — she began the competition as a soap actress with limited dance training and ended it as a Glitterball champion after demonstrating consistent, rapid improvement in a new discipline. And her emotional connection with audiences was deepened by the personal context of her year — the axed Coronation Street role, the ended relationship — which gave her story a narrative arc that viewers found genuinely meaningful.
Layton Williams was a more technically accomplished dancer, but his musical theatre background meant his improvement across the series was less dramatic — he was excellent from the beginning. Bobby Brazier’s emotional story was compelling, but his was a more external narrative (dedicating his dancing to his mother’s memory). Ellie’s emotional story was her own internal journey — the process of rebuilding herself in public through dance — and it is this internal, personal quality that British voting audiences respond to most consistently when making the final call.
The Role of Vito Coppola in Her Victory
Vito Coppola’s role in Ellie’s victory deserves specific recognition beyond the obvious — he was her professional partner and her teacher. His specific coaching contribution — the ability to identify her natural strengths (rhythm, expressiveness, physical confidence) and develop them while patiently managing the technical weaknesses — produced the improvement trajectory that made her victory possible. His decision-making in final choreography, particularly in choosing the American smooth as their back catalogue favourite and in structuring the show dance as an ambitious, risk-taking creation, reflected both artistic vision and competitive intelligence. The fact that the show dance’s attempted lift was not successfully executed was a consequence of competitive ambition rather than poor preparation; it was a choice to attempt something difficult in front of millions of viewers, and it reflected the spirit that had characterised their partnership from the beginning.
His personal investment in Ellie’s story — visible in every conversation on the show, in every social media interaction after the series, and in his post-victory statements — was not merely good television. It was genuine care for a young person who needed to rebuild her confidence, expressed through the medium of professional dance instruction and the shared experience of performing together. “Thank you for finding the dancer in me,” Ellie told him when they won. The phrase is the best summary of what Vito Coppola contributed to one of Strictly’s most celebrated victories.
Ellie Leach’s Net Worth and Career Earnings
Building a Commercial Profile
Since winning Strictly Come Dancing in December 2023, Ellie Leach has built a commercial profile that extends well beyond what a Coronation Street actress of twelve years’ standing would typically command. Her Strictly victory — and the associated media attention, social media growth, and broadened public recognition — has opened commercial opportunities including brand partnerships, paid social media collaborations, and the kind of mainstream television bookings that carry significantly higher fees than soap opera day rates. While specific financial details are not publicly confirmed, the trajectory of her post-Strictly career suggests an earnings profile substantially higher than her pre-Strictly period.
Her Instagram following — grown significantly post-Strictly — makes her a commercially viable influencer in the British market, with brand partnership opportunities available to her across lifestyle, fashion, and entertainment categories. The combination of a relatable personal story, a mainstream BBC One profile, and a young demographic following gives her a commercially attractive package. Estimates for post-Strictly Coronation Street alumni in a comparable profile range broadly, but the combination of drama, game show appearances, and commercial partnerships suggests annual earnings comfortably in the six-figure range. The Channel 5 drama credit in 2025 and the ongoing television appearances confirm that her career trajectory post-Strictly is moving upward rather than plateauing in the “one-year Strictly bounce” pattern that affects some contestants. Her decision to address unfounded rumours of career stagnation directly — highlighting her ongoing projects and expressing disappointment at the narrative — reflects the same directness and self-possession that characterised her handling of the Coronation Street axing story and the relationship breakdown. At 24, with a Glitterball Trophy, a Channel 5 drama credit, and a growing commercial and social media profile, Ellie Leach is building the post-soap career that the Strictly win made possible — steadily, purposefully, and on her own terms.
FAQs
Did Ellie Leach win Strictly Come Dancing 2023?
Yes. Ellie Leach won the twenty-first series of Strictly Come Dancing on 16 December 2023, partnered with professional dancer Vito Coppola. The 22-year-old TV star beat two other couples — Bobby Brazier and Dianne Buswell, and Layton Williams and Nikita Kuzmin. The winner was decided by the public vote; on the judges’ scoreboard, Ellie and Vito placed third behind Layton Williams and Bobby Brazier, but won the competition outright through the public vote.
Who was Ellie Leach’s Strictly partner?
Ellie Leach’s partner on Strictly Come Dancing 2023 was professional dancer Vito Coppola, an Italian-born dancer who joined the Strictly professional line-up in 2022. Vito was born on 6 June 1992 in Napoli, Italy, and is a former European Latin Dancing champion from 2016. He was in his second Strictly series when he partnered with Ellie; his first celebrity partner was Fleur East, with whom he reached the 2022 final as runner-up.
Is Ellie Leach the youngest Strictly winner ever?
Yes. At age 22, she became the youngest celebrity to win the show, a record previously held by Olympic gymnast Louis Smith of series ten, who was 23 at the time. Ellie was born on 15 March 2001 and was still 22 when she won on 16 December 2023. Louis Smith had held the record since 2012. No previous Strictly winner had been younger than 22 at the time of their victory.
Are Ellie Leach and Vito Coppola in a relationship?
No. Ellie Leach and Vito Coppola have consistently confirmed they are close friends but are not in a romantic relationship. Both have addressed the question directly in multiple public statements and interviews. Their visible chemistry and closeness naturally generated media speculation, but both Ellie and Vito have been clear and consistent about the nature of their bond — an extremely close friendship that developed through the intense shared experience of Strictly.
What dances did Ellie Leach perform in the 2023 final?
Ellie and Vito’s three final dances were: a paso doble to “Insomnia” by 2WEI (judges’ choice), a show dance to a Jennifer Lopez megamix (which included an attempted lift that was not successfully executed), and their chosen favourite from the series — the American smooth to “Ain’t That A Kick In The Head” in the style of Robbie Williams. The paso doble and American smooth received excellent judge reactions; the show dance received mixed reviews due to the lift difficulty, though was praised overall for its ambition and quality.
What were the scores in the Strictly 2023 final?
On the judges’ scoreboard in the 2023 final, Layton Williams and Nikita Kuzmin topped the leaderboard with 119 points. Bobby Brazier and Dianne Buswell placed second with 117 points. Ellie Leach and Vito Coppola placed third with 115 points. The final result, however, is determined entirely by the public vote rather than the judges’ scores, and Ellie and Vito won the public vote to be crowned Strictly Come Dancing 2023 champions.
Why did Ellie Leach leave Coronation Street?
Leach later confirmed the show’s bosses had told her they could “see no future for the character” resulting in her role being axed. The departure was initially described in media reports as Ellie’s own choice, but she subsequently confirmed it was not voluntary — the decision had been made by the show’s producers. Her character Faye Windass’s departure scenes aired in July 2023, with Faye leaving to be with her daughter Miley and Miley’s father Jackson.
What has Ellie Leach done since winning Strictly?
Since winning Strictly in December 2023, Ellie Leach has: joined the Strictly Come Dancing Live Tour in early 2024; appeared in the ITVBe reality series Drama Queens in 2024; participated in celebrity specials of The Chase and The Wheel; joined the cast of a Channel 5 crime drama series in 2025; and appeared on Richard Osman’s House of Games in October 2025. She has significantly grown her social media following and continues to build her profile as an actress and television personality.
Who else was in the Strictly 2023 line-up?
The 2023 Strictly line-up included Bobby Brazier (EastEnders), Layton Williams (Bad Education), Angela Rippon (newsreader), Krishnan Guru-Murthy (Channel 4 journalist), Zara McDermott (Love Island), Annabel Croft (tennis player), Les Dennis (actor), Nigel Harman (The Bill), Angela Scanlon (TV presenter), Adam Thomas (Waterloo Road), and others. The three finalists were Ellie Leach, Bobby Brazier, and Layton Williams.
How can I watch Ellie Leach’s Strictly performances?
All of Ellie Leach and Vito Coppola’s 2023 Strictly performances are available on BBC iPlayer (free with UK TV licence, bbc.co.uk/iplayer). Individual performance clips including their semi-final Couples’ Choice, their Week 7 Tango, and all three of their final dances are available free of charge on the official Strictly Come Dancing YouTube channel, accessible worldwide without a subscription.
What was Ellie Leach’s first Strictly dance?
Ellie Leach and Vito Coppola’s first competitive dance on Strictly Come Dancing 2023 was a Cha Cha to “Try Again” by Destiny’s Child in Week 1. The performance immediately demonstrated Ellie’s natural sense of rhythm and performance confidence, with head judge Shirley Ballas commenting on her “star quality.” It set the tone for a journey that would take them from first-week excitement to Glitterball Trophy winners thirteen weeks later.
How old is Ellie Leach?
Ellie Leach was born on 15 March 2001, making her 24 years old as of mid-2025 and early 2026. She was 22 when she won Strictly Come Dancing in December 2023 — making her the youngest winner in the show’s history. She grew up in Bury, Greater Manchester, and attended Fairfield High School for Girls before beginning her professional acting career as a child.
To Conclude
Ellie Leach’s Strictly Come Dancing journey in 2023 is one of the most complete and emotionally resonant winner’s stories in the show’s history. She arrived in the autumn of 2023 as a young actress whose twelve-year soap career had just ended involuntarily, whose five-year relationship had just collapsed, and who had, by any measure, a significant amount to prove — both to herself and to an industry that had, in a sense, just told her it didn’t need her. She left it in December 2023 as the youngest winner in the programme’s twenty-one-year history, holding a Glitterball Trophy that the British public had decided she deserved by an unambiguous popular mandate.
At 22, having played Faye Windass for twelve years on Coronation Street, having been axed from the role she had given her childhood to, and having rebuilt her confidence and sense of self through thirteen extraordinary Saturday nights on the BBC’s most beloved entertainment programme, Ellie Leach demonstrated something that Strictly Come Dancing does at its best: that the programme is not merely a dance competition but a platform for genuine human transformation. Vito Coppola found “the diamond he was talking about.” Ellie found the dancer in herself. And millions of viewers who voted for them both confirmed that they had found something far more valuable still — a reminder of what is possible when you commit yourself fully to becoming, over thirteen weeks of live television, the best version of what you can be. As of 2026, Ellie Leach is 24 years old, building a career in drama and television that is entirely her own, and wearing the fact of being Strictly’s youngest ever champion with the quiet pride of someone who earned it completely.
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