Strictly's Victoria struggles to 'love' Brendan

Strictly's Victoria struggles to 'love' Brendan
Strictly's Victoria struggles to 'love' Brendan (Image credit: BBC/Ray Burmiston)

Strictly Come Dancing star Victoria Pendleton has admitted she struggles to pretend she is in love with dance partner Brendan Cole during their steamy dances on the show. Olympic cycling's golden girl finished joint second on the leaderboard after dancing a tango this weekend. She told the Radio Times: "As lovely as Brendan is, he's not my fiance, so dancing the tango, which involves staying away from each other as opposed to pretending to be in love with each other, was really enjoyable for me. "I'm not an actress, so pretending to be in love with someone for a week is actually quite hard." Victoria, who is due to tie the knot with fiance Scott Gardner next summer, added: "It's a good thing Scott is very secure in our relationship, so there are no issues there. He has been very supportive of me during Strictly, running me a bath when I get home from training with sore feet, and coming to the studio every week. "He also gets upset for me when a performance doesn't go as well as I was hoping it would. He was particularly concerned when I nearly strangled myself with chiffon in the rumba a couple of weeks ago." Victoria said that, apart from Scott, her biggest Strictly fan is her mother. "My mum loves Strictly and is so glad to see me doing something other than cycling. She used to find watching me on the track really stressful and didn't handle it very well," she told the magazine.

Patrick McLennan

Patrick McLennan is a London-based journalist and documentary maker who has worked as a writer, sub-editor, digital editor and TV producer in the UK and New Zealand. His CV includes spells as a news producer at the BBC and TVNZ, as well as web editor for Time Inc UK. He has produced TV news and entertainment features on personalities as diverse as Nick Cave, Tom Hardy, Clive James, Jodie Marsh and Kevin Bacon and he co-produced and directed The Ponds, which has screened in UK cinemas, BBC Four and is currently available on Netflix. 


An entertainment writer with a diverse taste in TV and film, he lists Seinfeld, The Sopranos, The Chase, The Thick of It and Detectorists among his favourite shows, but steers well clear of most sci-fi.