Courtney Act wants to appear on Strictly Come Dancing with a male partner

Drag icon Courtney Act has said she wants to compete on Strictly Come Dancing – with a male partner.

Act, who won January’s edition of Celebrity Big Brother, said that she would first perform on the show under her drag moniker, before coming out as her real identity, Shane Jenek, and competing as a same-sex couple.

“I hope the BBC would be open to it. They love a stunt casting,” she told the Daily Star. “Surely it’s time for the BBC to do it.

“I would want to be Courtney and dance with a male partner. And then halfway through the series I’d come out as Shane and there would finally be same-sex dancing on the show.

“I’ve seen same-sex ballroom dancing and it’s just as fabulous.”

Same-sex couples have so far been forbidden from dancing on the show, but this could be about to change.

Last month, Strictly‘s new head judge Shirley Ballas backed same-sex dance couples appearing on the show – after years of resistance from the show’s producers.

Act wants to dance on the BBC’s Strictly Come Dancing. (BBC)

Act, who rose to fame on RuPaul’s Drag Race, identifies as gender-fluid, and has explained to PinkNews how this allowed her to be “much more comfortable” than she had ever felt in her own skin. 

Act described a huge change in “how I felt on the inside” on adopting the label gender-fluid, in an exclusive interview with PinkNews.

She said: “I also identify as gender-fluid, which means I’m not going to conform to some societal expectation of being a man or being a woman, and that I’m just going to be me – dress how I want to dress, act how I want to act.

“It’s funny because ever since I started identifying as gender-fluid it didn’t actually change anything about how I looked on the outside, it actually just changed how I felt on the inside.

Courtney Act.

In the same interview, Act supported Drag Race contestant Robbie Turner, who claimed to have been in a car crash that killed her Uber driver. She later admitted the story was made up.

However, 2018 Celebrity Big Brother winner Courtney Act told PinkNews people should be “supporting and having empathy” for Turner.

She said: “I would like to defer to BenDeLaCreme who made a tweet that I think was really important – people want to poke and prod: is this a lie, or is this the truth? Why did you do [it]?

“Rather than looking to tear down, why don’t we look at supporting and having empathy for either the comments or the reasons the comments were made.”

• Drag
• Jan 03

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