STRICTLY Come Dancing’s Luba Mushtuk was left in tears after taking to the stage for the last time following a BBC ‘bloodbath’.
Luba was one of several professional dancers to be axed from the pro lineup following a revamp.
In an emotional TikTok video, she broke down after reflecting on her experience on the show.
She told the audience: “So I’ve been saying, concentrate now! What I’ve been saying is that the dance we love has to sometimes come to an end, but that doesn’t mean the music stops.
“It means there are new dances waiting to be discovered, new steps to learn and new stories to tell.
“Yes this dance has come to an end, and this tour has come to an end, but it has been absolutely unforgettable, and I want to thank, I would really really like to thank, a part of each one of you at this stage, but I would also like to thank every single person who works behind the scenes, the people you don’t see, because without them none of this would be possible.
“Wow, this is… wow! I want to leave you with this, no matter where life takes you, the music will go on, and so we must keep dancing.”
It’s not just the pro dancers who will be different; the show will have new hosts, too.
Emma Willis, Johannes Radebe, and Josh Widdicombe are replacing Tess Daly and Claudia Winkleman as hosts.
Gorka Marquez will also be saying goodbye to the BBC primetime programme after 10 years.
Gorka Márquez, 35, Nadiya Bychkova, 36, Neil Jones, 43, Nancy Xu, 34, and Karen Hauer, 43, Michelle Tsiakkas, 30, have all lost their places on the dancefloor, alongside Luba.
Luba joined Strictly Come Dancing in 2018, and has been a popular member of the professional line-up ever since.
“Luba is absolutely devastated. Strictly has been her life for years and she genuinely believed she would be back,” a source told the Express.
“She’s basically in hiding right now. She’s not answering calls, not replying to messages – she just wants to process it privately.
“This wasn’t about wrongdoing or performance. It’s a brutal reality of TV – producers refresh the cast and sometimes people who’ve done nothing wrong get cut.
“She thought she had more time. There was no long goodbye, no gradual transition just a phone call telling her she wouldn’t be needed.”
Execs also want to put distance between Strictly and the string of scandals that have rocked the programme in recent years.
They include dancer Giovanni Pernice being accused of bullying his 2023 dance partner, actress Amanda Abbington, which led to a probe that exonerated him of the more serious complaints.
Also, Graziano Di Prima was sacked by the BBC after he kicked Love Island’s Zara McDermott during their rehearsals on the show in 2023.
It was also revealed how pro dancer Michelle Tsiakkas quit the BBC show’s nationwide professionals tour after “being promised one thing but given something totally different.”
The ballroom dancer sensationally stepped down from the Strictly: The Professionals shows just days after it was revealed she had been axed from the flagship show in a brutal cast shake-up.
