Strictly Come Dancing star Ellie Leach FINALLY breaks silence on those romance rumors with pro dancer Vito Coppola: ‘He’s wild… every day we just laugh’

This is an interesting twist on the idea of ​​introducing a handsome young man to your parents. Strictly contestant Ellie Leach brings her dance partner back to her mum and dad for dinner. And it’s a storm.

‘He has become part of the family. They love him and he loves my mom’s gravy,” she reveals. Excuse me? “My mother cooked a beef stew, a regular beef stew, nothing special, I thought, but he loved it, so every time he came to ask for tea he would ask, ‘Is there any gravy?’ ‘

‘He’ is, of course, Vito Coppola, 31, the Strictly pro who sweeps Ellie off her feet and the man who helps her, as she poignantly tells me, ‘find my own personality’.

His Mediterranean heritage may make him an unlikely fan of traditional British dishes, but they’re also one of Strictly’s most fascinating combinations. The former Coronation Street actress is just 22, a self-confessed ‘housewife’ from Manchester, who still lives with her parents and, despite having been acting since the age of nine, comes across as shy.

He is the Italian stallion, an 11-time Latin American champion who has a heart-throb. He and his pop star partner on the Italian version of Strictly became an item in real life, although the relationship was over by the time he moved to Britain.

Vito is an all-out guy. His fans joked that his chest hair should have its own social media account. His adoration of Ellie is shown as flamboyantly as his flamenco swagger. He calls her ‘my baby’, ‘my Lulu’ and ‘a diamond’.

At the end of their off-the-scale sexy Argentine tango last week, when viewers thought they were going to fall for each other (and not in an “oops!” way), he explained how he got this sweet girl to let her go. inner tiger.

“There’s a fireball between us and I said, ‘Look at me and eat me with your eyes,’” he told shocked co-host Claudia Winkleman, who may never recover.

Viewers loved it. Guess what? Ellie seems to love it too.

“Vito is wild,” she says, laughing. ‘But that’s what makes every day so much fun. I had never done anything like this before, but he is such a great teacher and a great person that he gives me the confidence. Vito encouraged me to get out of my comfort zone.’

She tries to explain how he gets her into the other zone. “We take a deep breath before we go out, so I forget about the judges and the audience, and it’s just Vito and me on the dance floor.”

Ellie and Vito were a couple to watch from the start, but the sizzle factor between them wasn’t necessarily what viewers initially found compelling — it was the humor. Although Vito speaks four languages ​​(Italian, English, Russian and Spanish), his command of English has led to some moments where the couple burst out laughing due to miscommunication.

There was a time when he brought a ‘lula hoop’ to help her hip action. Even funnier was the moment when, draped clumsily over his shoulders, she told him she thought she was going to fall. He misunderstood her Manchester accent, thought she said ‘fart’ and put her down very quickly. She still laughs about that today.

‘I don’t think I had that much fun. Every day we just laugh.”

Now they are the bookmakers’ favorites to lift the glitterball trophy, perhaps showing just how winning and layered their chemistry is.

Of course, there’s only one question fans of the show want answered. Are they a couple in real life? There have been rumors and – hell – Ellie is in no rush to confirm them today.

“There’s always speculation about the couples on Strictly,” she says coyly. “But honestly, we’re just so busy dancing.”

No you are not! You just said he came over for tea! What do your parents think of him? “They are absolutely thrilled that he is coming over, and so am I.” I like the idea of ​​him taking her to the salsa bars of Manchester every night – but he doesn’t do that either.

But no one can begrudge Ellie some glamor after the year she’s had: losing her job and divorcing her long-term partner. She doesn’t come from a showbiz family – her parents both have ‘normal’ jobs – but as a child she took drama classes because she was painfully shy. “My mom thought it would give me confidence and I just loved it.”

After a few advertisements, she won her first film role in 2009, when she was eight, in A Boy Called Dad. The following year she auditioned for Corrie. She would play Faye Windass for 12 years.

Everything happened with Faye and none of it was glamorous and sparkling. She had a heroin addict mother, was adopted, got pregnant at 12, ended up in prison for attacking the wrong person and had an early menopause.

Ellie threw her heart into the role and wowed audiences with her portrayal of some gripping storylines, but the dream job ended earlier this year when her character was written out.

Nowadays, nice girl that she is, she speaks very warmly about her time on the soap, which is famous for protecting its young stars. “It really is like a family,” she says. ‘You get a teacher on set and you are really taken care of.’ It’s still a strange environment to grow up in, isn’t it? “It’s like a bubble,” she agrees. ‘I grew up a bit among adults. You are aware that you are a professional, just like you are a child, so you grow up a little faster.’

She admits it was scary to lose that role “because it’s scary to leave somewhere you’ve been for a long time,” but now “I think things happen for a reason.”

The same with her private life. For the last five years of her time on the soap she had a steady boyfriend, Reagan Pettman, a dancer, but they split around the same time she left Corrie.

She has previously said he cheated on her. She doesn’t want to go into details today, but it’s clear it was a turbulent time.

And then – drum roll, please – came Strictly. And Vito. Let’s just say it couldn’t have happened at a better time.

‘I was so ready for it: the sequins, the ruffles, the tassels. I thought, ‘I’ll take it all.’ It was nerve-wracking, because for the first time I wasn’t playing a character, this was about me, about finding my own personality.’ Emphasis is often placed on how Strictly contestants’ bodies change.

Ellie has dropped a few dress sizes, but the bigger difference is internal. “It’s crazy how everything has changed. I don’t like the word ‘journey’ that people use when talking about Strictly, but there’s no better word because it’s true. Mine was a rollercoaster and I’m surprised at how it affected my entire life. I even stand differently.

‘I’m waiting for a cup of coffee or something and realize I’m holding myself up more. But I am also becoming more resilient. I think more in terms of ‘Okay, I can do this’ and not ‘I can’t do this’.

‘When I see that my parents are proud of me and Vito is proud of me, it makes me proud of myself. I believe in myself a little more.’

But is she hungry to win? “It’s funny, because at the very beginning I said to Vito, ‘I’m not really a competitive person,’ and he said, ‘You have to be competitive – with yourself.’ And so am I now. I just want to be the best I can be.”

She now runs to training and throws herself into Vito’s arms. The evidence is that she loves herself a little more than she did 11 weeks ago, which is already a win.