Strictly 2025 adds EastEnders star Balvinder Sopal to line-up
Eastenders star Balvinder Sopal has joined the cast of Strictly Come Dancing 2025, becoming the fifth contestant to be announced (BBC)
Eastenders star Balvinder Sopal has joined the cast of Strictly Come Dancing 2025, becoming the fifth contestant to be announced (BBC)
EastEnders star Balvinder Sopal has joined this year’s cast of Strictly Come Dancing.
Sopal has played Suki Panesar on EastEnders since 2020. She has also had short runs in other soaps Hollyoaks, Emmerdale and Coronation Street as well as appearing in Call The Midwife, Doctors and Waterloo Road. She was revealed as the fifth celeb to join the show, on Tuesday morning (12 August).
“Being on Strictly is a dream that I held on to, with no proof that it would ever happen,” Sopal said. “Working on EastEnders and being a part of Strictly Come Dancing is the stuff that dreams are made of. I’m incredibly excited at the prospect of dancing across the ballroom.”
She told ITV’s Good Morning Britain that she had done some ballroom and Latin dancing as a “hobby”, adding: “When you’ve got a passion for something, you’re naturally inclined to enjoy it. I’ll enjoy it but I don’t know if I’ll be any good.”
Sopal joins Love Island winner Dani Dyer, Doctor Who and ER star Alex Kingston, former Leeds United and Chelsea striker Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink and ex-Olympic sprinter Harry Aikines-Aryeetey – better-known to some as Gladiators‘ Nitro – in this year’s line-up.
EastEnders‘ fans will know that Suki is in a relationship with Eve Unwin, played by lesbian actress Heather Peace.
Sopal has described the storyline as being “truthful” and “sensitive” towards the LGBTQ+ and South Asian communities. She told BBC Radio Kent in 2022 that “for a lot of my career I have played women who have never been exposed in that way, sexually”, adding: “It has always been women who cannot speak English, [who] wear a hijab. Suki is everything I have never played. Doing kissing scenes with somebody [who] is not a partner is quite daunting and strange.”
Suki and Eve kicked off 2025 by tying the knot in the show’s New Year’s Day episode. They became the first lesbian couple to marry on the soap which has been running for 40 years.
Strictly Come Dancing will air on BBC One and iPlayer from next month.
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