BBC Strictly Come Dancing's Ellie Leach 'truly gutted' after sending 'chaos' message to Vito Coppola amid show milestone

Ellie Leach has said she is 'truly gutted' as she addressed making it through to the penultimate week of Strictly Come Dancing 2023. The actress took to social media on Sunday to acknowledge the major achievement after changes had to be made to the BBC One dance contest.

Ellie was seen back in the ballroom on Saturday night (December 2) alongside her professional dance partner Vito Coppola. The former Coronation Street star and her professional dance partner opened the Musicals week special by performing a quickstep to the song Belle from Beauty And The Beast.

Dressed as the Disney princess in a blue and white dress, she glided and twirled across the room with Vito, who donned a Gaston costume with a bellowing white shirt and red waistcoat.

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After the judges’ praise, it was confirmed they had secured a score of 36 which at the end of the show left them in second place on the leaderboard behind Layton Williams and Nikita Kuzmin who scored the first perfect score of the 2023 series.

But, the pair didn't have to wait for a public vote to decide their fate in the competition following the quarter-finals as major changes had to be made after Nigel Harman was forced to pull out of the competition just hours before the latest live show. The Casualty actor and his dance partner Katya Jones were expected to perform a Charleston to Step In Time from Disney’s Mary Poppins with his partner Katya in the Musical weeks special.

However, he had to pull out of the show and the rest of the series at the eleventh hour due to