Callum
24-08-2008, 04:28 PM
Source: NOTW
STRICTLY Come Dancing stars are paid almost the MINIMUM WAGE by the BBC and had to STRIP in front of each other, we can reveal today.
The shocking backstage conditions endured by the moneyspinning hit show’s professional dancers will stun millions of its fans.
Spilling the series’ shabby secrets, fans’ favourite Nicole Cutler stormed: “The money was so bad we could have got almost the same at McDonald’s.”
Sacked Strictly favourite Nicole has spoken out to expose the simmering backstage bitterness hidden behind the sequins and the glitz.
“It’s nothing like it looks on TV,” stormed the stunning dancer. “And it’s all the BBC’s fault.”
Nicole, who became a household name before she was cruelly axed revealed how professional dancers including big names Brendan Cole and Anton Du Beke were paid a paltry £6 AN HOUR while their celebrity partners, presenters and judges collected a fortune.
"The amount we got paid compared to the hours we actually put in rehearsing and performing meant we were on the minimum wage.” complained Nicole. “The money was so bad we could have got almost the same at McDonalds.
“But as long as there are dancers desperate to be on Strictly Come Dancing we’ll never be able to negotiate fees. If we rocked the boat too much they’d just get rid of us one by one.”
Former Latin American world champ Nicole, 36, also revealed backstage conditions so SHABBY male and female dancers were forced to STRIP in front of each other in a CORRIDOR before the shows because the cheapskate BBC wouldn’t give them dressing rooms.
She told how £450,000-a-year show host Bruce Forsyth is so DODDERY he couldn’t even REMEMBER the dancers’ names—and how his co-host Tess Daly and highly-paid judges ignore the dancers the minute the cameras stop running.
“The judges don’t talk to us and we have nothing to do with Tess or Bruce,” she said.
Added to this are the TEARS, TANTRUMS and BITTER FEUDING between the dancers themselves. “A lot have problems because we’ve had personal relationship breakdowns but we have to continue dancing together because it’s our job,” said Nicole. But the biggest problem during her three years on the show—which starts again on September 13—were the appalling working conditions and pay. In the last series she said dancers including Cole, her ex-husband Matthew Cutler and Flavia Cacace—calculated they were earning just a few pence more than the recently announced hourly minimum wage of £5.73.
They get £17,000 a series while the celebrities they dance with get £30,000—but do far less work.
Nicole—who wowed millions with her performances with stars Diarmuid Gavin, Nicholas Owen and John Barnes—said: “It seems hard to believe but with the hours we put in for last year’s show we were getting £6 an hour, which is only just above the minimum wage.
“For 25 weeks of the year the dancers have to give their entire life over to Strictly, we eat sleep and breathe it. We’re the only people involved in the show who work 16 hours a day, seven days a week.
“Sometimes it feels like we don’t have time to eat or sleep. We didn’t mind until they started asking us to do more and more and more.”
The dancers have to choreograph their routines, sort out the music and teach and rehearse the celebrities, often travelling long distances. Their astonishingly low pay is even more shocking because the BBC makes millions from the show each year by selling the format to other countries, including America. It is now one of BBC Worldwide’s main moneyspinners. Nicole—who was sacked by the BBC bosses because they said they couldn’t find her a partner—revealed the shoddy pay was matched only by their treatment behind the scenes.
She said: “We get changed together. There can be no room for embarrassment. We’ve got our tops off and the boys get it all off.
“There are no changing rooms. We just do it in a BBC corridor.”
And despite the cosy on-screen chats, there was no mingling allowed with show hosts Bruce and Tess, 37.
Nicole said Bruce—who works just a few hours a week for his £450,000 pay day—is treated like God on set but is so doddery he can’t remember the names of dancers he has been working with for five years.
She added: “He is 80 so when he forgets our names we do understand because he manages to keep it together on the live show. But it can be a bit embarrassing not knowing if he actually knows who you are.”
On screen Bruce’s co-host Tess, on £150,000 a series, is portrayed as a friend to both the celebrities and pro dancers, supporting them after their routines as they await the scores. But Nicole said as soon as a scene is over Tess becomes cold and makes no effort to mix with the dancers. She said: “In the three years of working on the show I never once had a conversation with Tess that wasn’t on camera.
“They make it look like she’s best mates with us all but she doesn’t talk to us off camera. She wouldn’t know what’s going on behind the scenes in a dance partnership.”
Nicole also told how there was a secret rule which means the controversial £90,000-a-series judges—Len Goodman, 66, Bruno Tonioli, 52, Arlene Phillips, 65, and Craig Revel Horwood, 41—are BANNED from mixing with the dancers or their partners.
“They’re kept very separate to us. They have very plush nice changing rooms upstairs while we’re kept away downstairs,” she said.
“Arlene is very icy, she’ll say very harsh things on the show and then not even be able to bring herself to look at you.
“Bruno is so dramatic and his craziness works. It’s not that he doesn’t know what he’s talking about but he’s not as knowledgeable as Len.”
She added that the one time she did run into bitchy judge Craig, he actually apologised for one of the nasty comments he’d made.
“Craig is a bit mean. He said some bad things about people on the show then pretended he hadn’t meant to be mean. But of course he meant it, it’s his character to be bitchy,” she said.
She revealed there’s also cattyness and tension between dancers because of their tangled relationships. “There are blazing rows in the studio at times,” she said.
Nicole was involved in a bitter divorce from 34-year-old blond hunk Matthew Cutler five years ago but claimed they now get on and supported each other on the show. But last year Nicole she said she saw the relationship between fellow dancers Flavia Cacace, 28, and Vincent Simone, 29, crash and burn as Flavia started a relationship with her soap star partner Matt di Angelo, 21.
Nicole recalled: “It was horrible to watch. I saw Vincent slowly crumble as the series went on. He started out friends with Matt and then when he found out he couldn’t bring himself to talk to him.
“But things had been disintegrating between Vincent and Flavia long before Matt arrived on the scene.
“The boys just had to avoid each other. Vincent was with Flavia for 13 years. But they’re good friends again now she and Matt are over.”
Only one Strictly dance couple— James and Ola Jordan— remain happily married.
Nicole herself is good friends with show lothario Brendan Cole, 32, and said his long-term ex-girlfriend Camilla Dal- lerup, 34, acts like an ice queen behind the scenes, never partying with other dancers.
Nicole said: “We all knew Camilla very well but I know Brendan better so it was very awkward. You couldn’t be in the same room with them. There was no slapping or punching but a lot tension.” Nicole said Anton du Beke, 42, was the distinguished gentleman of the group, while Brendan and James were the “alpha males” always out to beat each other. “All the professionals on Strictly have competed against each other away from the show so there’s natural rivalry.
“Brendan and James have the most testosterone. They’ll constantly be doing press and sit ups. There’s a punch bag in the studio which they lay into and they hang from the rafters competing doing chin ups.”
Nicole said she was devastated when she found out she’d been dumped without being told by BBC bosses—despite getting ex-soccer star John Barnes, not a natural dancer, through eight weeks of last year’s show.
She said: “We receive our contracts in July and I knew Matthew had got his. A week passed, then a fortnight, and I still hadn’t got one.
Tears
“Eventually I had to call the bosses myself and they told me, ‘I’m afraid it’s bad news, we can’t find you a celebrity this year.’ I was in tears. It wasn’t a nice way to find out. The other dancers were upset too. It was a warning if they could fire me like that, the same thing could happen to them.”
She will be replaced this year by Kiwi dancer Hayley Holt, 27. Nicole is now dating Surrey cricketer Jonathan Batty, 34, and focusing on life after Strictly.
But she is sad about missing out on getting a new Strictly partner: “I’d love to come back and do the show again. It’ll be extremely hard to watch it and not be part of it.”
STRICTLY Come Dancing stars are paid almost the MINIMUM WAGE by the BBC and had to STRIP in front of each other, we can reveal today.
The shocking backstage conditions endured by the moneyspinning hit show’s professional dancers will stun millions of its fans.
Spilling the series’ shabby secrets, fans’ favourite Nicole Cutler stormed: “The money was so bad we could have got almost the same at McDonald’s.”
Sacked Strictly favourite Nicole has spoken out to expose the simmering backstage bitterness hidden behind the sequins and the glitz.
“It’s nothing like it looks on TV,” stormed the stunning dancer. “And it’s all the BBC’s fault.”
Nicole, who became a household name before she was cruelly axed revealed how professional dancers including big names Brendan Cole and Anton Du Beke were paid a paltry £6 AN HOUR while their celebrity partners, presenters and judges collected a fortune.
"The amount we got paid compared to the hours we actually put in rehearsing and performing meant we were on the minimum wage.” complained Nicole. “The money was so bad we could have got almost the same at McDonalds.
“But as long as there are dancers desperate to be on Strictly Come Dancing we’ll never be able to negotiate fees. If we rocked the boat too much they’d just get rid of us one by one.”
Former Latin American world champ Nicole, 36, also revealed backstage conditions so SHABBY male and female dancers were forced to STRIP in front of each other in a CORRIDOR before the shows because the cheapskate BBC wouldn’t give them dressing rooms.
She told how £450,000-a-year show host Bruce Forsyth is so DODDERY he couldn’t even REMEMBER the dancers’ names—and how his co-host Tess Daly and highly-paid judges ignore the dancers the minute the cameras stop running.
“The judges don’t talk to us and we have nothing to do with Tess or Bruce,” she said.
Added to this are the TEARS, TANTRUMS and BITTER FEUDING between the dancers themselves. “A lot have problems because we’ve had personal relationship breakdowns but we have to continue dancing together because it’s our job,” said Nicole. But the biggest problem during her three years on the show—which starts again on September 13—were the appalling working conditions and pay. In the last series she said dancers including Cole, her ex-husband Matthew Cutler and Flavia Cacace—calculated they were earning just a few pence more than the recently announced hourly minimum wage of £5.73.
They get £17,000 a series while the celebrities they dance with get £30,000—but do far less work.
Nicole—who wowed millions with her performances with stars Diarmuid Gavin, Nicholas Owen and John Barnes—said: “It seems hard to believe but with the hours we put in for last year’s show we were getting £6 an hour, which is only just above the minimum wage.
“For 25 weeks of the year the dancers have to give their entire life over to Strictly, we eat sleep and breathe it. We’re the only people involved in the show who work 16 hours a day, seven days a week.
“Sometimes it feels like we don’t have time to eat or sleep. We didn’t mind until they started asking us to do more and more and more.”
The dancers have to choreograph their routines, sort out the music and teach and rehearse the celebrities, often travelling long distances. Their astonishingly low pay is even more shocking because the BBC makes millions from the show each year by selling the format to other countries, including America. It is now one of BBC Worldwide’s main moneyspinners. Nicole—who was sacked by the BBC bosses because they said they couldn’t find her a partner—revealed the shoddy pay was matched only by their treatment behind the scenes.
She said: “We get changed together. There can be no room for embarrassment. We’ve got our tops off and the boys get it all off.
“There are no changing rooms. We just do it in a BBC corridor.”
And despite the cosy on-screen chats, there was no mingling allowed with show hosts Bruce and Tess, 37.
Nicole said Bruce—who works just a few hours a week for his £450,000 pay day—is treated like God on set but is so doddery he can’t remember the names of dancers he has been working with for five years.
She added: “He is 80 so when he forgets our names we do understand because he manages to keep it together on the live show. But it can be a bit embarrassing not knowing if he actually knows who you are.”
On screen Bruce’s co-host Tess, on £150,000 a series, is portrayed as a friend to both the celebrities and pro dancers, supporting them after their routines as they await the scores. But Nicole said as soon as a scene is over Tess becomes cold and makes no effort to mix with the dancers. She said: “In the three years of working on the show I never once had a conversation with Tess that wasn’t on camera.
“They make it look like she’s best mates with us all but she doesn’t talk to us off camera. She wouldn’t know what’s going on behind the scenes in a dance partnership.”
Nicole also told how there was a secret rule which means the controversial £90,000-a-series judges—Len Goodman, 66, Bruno Tonioli, 52, Arlene Phillips, 65, and Craig Revel Horwood, 41—are BANNED from mixing with the dancers or their partners.
“They’re kept very separate to us. They have very plush nice changing rooms upstairs while we’re kept away downstairs,” she said.
“Arlene is very icy, she’ll say very harsh things on the show and then not even be able to bring herself to look at you.
“Bruno is so dramatic and his craziness works. It’s not that he doesn’t know what he’s talking about but he’s not as knowledgeable as Len.”
She added that the one time she did run into bitchy judge Craig, he actually apologised for one of the nasty comments he’d made.
“Craig is a bit mean. He said some bad things about people on the show then pretended he hadn’t meant to be mean. But of course he meant it, it’s his character to be bitchy,” she said.
She revealed there’s also cattyness and tension between dancers because of their tangled relationships. “There are blazing rows in the studio at times,” she said.
Nicole was involved in a bitter divorce from 34-year-old blond hunk Matthew Cutler five years ago but claimed they now get on and supported each other on the show. But last year Nicole she said she saw the relationship between fellow dancers Flavia Cacace, 28, and Vincent Simone, 29, crash and burn as Flavia started a relationship with her soap star partner Matt di Angelo, 21.
Nicole recalled: “It was horrible to watch. I saw Vincent slowly crumble as the series went on. He started out friends with Matt and then when he found out he couldn’t bring himself to talk to him.
“But things had been disintegrating between Vincent and Flavia long before Matt arrived on the scene.
“The boys just had to avoid each other. Vincent was with Flavia for 13 years. But they’re good friends again now she and Matt are over.”
Only one Strictly dance couple— James and Ola Jordan— remain happily married.
Nicole herself is good friends with show lothario Brendan Cole, 32, and said his long-term ex-girlfriend Camilla Dal- lerup, 34, acts like an ice queen behind the scenes, never partying with other dancers.
Nicole said: “We all knew Camilla very well but I know Brendan better so it was very awkward. You couldn’t be in the same room with them. There was no slapping or punching but a lot tension.” Nicole said Anton du Beke, 42, was the distinguished gentleman of the group, while Brendan and James were the “alpha males” always out to beat each other. “All the professionals on Strictly have competed against each other away from the show so there’s natural rivalry.
“Brendan and James have the most testosterone. They’ll constantly be doing press and sit ups. There’s a punch bag in the studio which they lay into and they hang from the rafters competing doing chin ups.”
Nicole said she was devastated when she found out she’d been dumped without being told by BBC bosses—despite getting ex-soccer star John Barnes, not a natural dancer, through eight weeks of last year’s show.
She said: “We receive our contracts in July and I knew Matthew had got his. A week passed, then a fortnight, and I still hadn’t got one.
Tears
“Eventually I had to call the bosses myself and they told me, ‘I’m afraid it’s bad news, we can’t find you a celebrity this year.’ I was in tears. It wasn’t a nice way to find out. The other dancers were upset too. It was a warning if they could fire me like that, the same thing could happen to them.”
She will be replaced this year by Kiwi dancer Hayley Holt, 27. Nicole is now dating Surrey cricketer Jonathan Batty, 34, and focusing on life after Strictly.
But she is sad about missing out on getting a new Strictly partner: “I’d love to come back and do the show again. It’ll be extremely hard to watch it and not be part of it.”