Tragic Strictly suicide has exposed dark side of BBC show - something must change

The details emerging from the ongoing inquest of former Strictly Come Dancing pro Robin Windsor made for truly grim reading when I arrived into work. The star left a damning suicide note slamming the BBC, saying the way he was treated by the corporation "destroyed" him and and it showed another side to the glamour and glitz portrayed on the Saturday night show.

The tragic dancer was found dead, face down on his hotel bed, at the age of 44 in February 2024. A jury inquest into his death heard two letters were found near his body, and in the first, he was disparaging about the treatment he had received from the long-running Saturday night entertainment show. "This all really started when I lost my job on Strictly and have been fighting it ever since. The way they treated me destroyed me...It started me on the road I'm still on," he wrote.

Robin had suffered a back injury in late 2013, which required surgery to remove a disc, forcing him to withdraw from the 2014 show. This has nothing to do with the BBC - in fact, they brought him back for an appearance in week nine on 23 November 2014. He also appeared in the 2015 Christmas special. He clearly had underlying issues, and there is also no suggestion that the BBC drove him to make the tragic decision to end his life.

However the note goes some way to showing the intensity and pressure the pros find themselves under and how crushing it is when they are no longer on it. His former colleague and friend Kristina Rihanoff, 48, told the hearing he was "extremely upset" after learning he had not been asked back for the 2014 series and said "the psychological impact was very severe" because he "couldn't do what he loved" due to his back pain.

He is not the first dancer to struggle with departing Strictly. Brendan Cole was on the show for 15 years before he was brutally axed in 2018. Speaking on Lorraine, he explained that his departure was an "editorial decision" and admitted he was "in shock".

"This is quite hard to talk about. The BBC haven't renewed my contract - we get renewed year on year - and they made an editorial decision not to have me back on the show. I'm a little bit in shock. I'm quite emotional, a bit raw about it," he added. "I've always known this day would come... I'm sure I'll never know the ins and outs. I'm a very strong character within the show, I have my strong views."

In October last year, he also poured cold water on the "one big happy family" image of the show when, in a chat with Closer Magazine, he confessed he only "got on really well with about five" of his celebrity partners. He said: "Every pro says they've got the best celebrity, and every celebrity says they've got the best pro - because that's what you have to say. But that's not always the case. [...] From my own experience over fifteen series I'd say I got on really well with about five of my partners." He even went so far as to say he hated one - not that you'd ever have known from their smiles on a Saturday night.

In December 2025, another former pro, James Jordan told Express.co.uk that viewers were not seeing the reality of the training room. Commenting on the clips shown before each dance, he said: "There'd be times, even this year, where people are walking out of training rooms because they're frustrated. There'd be tears, there'd be tantrums...Let's see the real backstage stuff..."

He also acknowledged that the dancers get frustrated by all the extra clips they have to shoot alongside preparing their partner for the following week's show. "I remember when I was on the show, we had to film the VTS...sometimes they'd take you and go, 'right today, we're going to go to a fair, and we're going to put you on a roller coaster to get you over your fear of the waltz'.

"I don't get it. Why? But that's what the producers want, but I don't get it. I think it's stupid. So then you go and spend half a day out of training where you want to be working on the dance to go and film a VT.

While Robin's case is an extreme one and these are just a few examples, there is no doubt there is far more going on behind the glitterball than viewers ever see. Dancers have no job security, tensions can run high and being let go can be a crushing blow. It is a pressure cooker waiting to boil over. If nothing else comes from his inquest, maybe the powers that be will take stock of the impact leaving the show has on people, whether through injury, as in Robin's case, or because of decisions made in the boardroom, like Brendan. Then it could be a healthier and happier show for everyone.