Strictly professional Jowita Przystal sent crowds wild at the O2 Arena last week as she dropped swooning into the muscular, leather-clad arms of former dance partner and reality TV star Pete Wicks.
At a live show of Wicks’s popular podcast, Staying Relevant, the pair surprised the audience with a dance routine so sexually charged they could barely keep their hands – or lips – off one another.
To the thumping beats of Way Down We Go by Kaleo, the Polish beauty, 31, and Towie star, 36, shared three passionate kisses.
Friday night’s display appears to offer the happy ending Strictly fans have long hoped for after witnessing their electric chemistry on last year’s series. It was that instinctive rapport which helped take the pair all the way to the semi-finals, after all.
For me, however, it wasn’t the first time I’d seen them getting intimate. It wasn’t even the first time I’d witnessed their closeness at this very venue – the 20,000-seat arena in London’s Greenwich – though back then they were rather more shy about it. Indeed in September last year, when I first saw their mutual affection, things were very different.
That occasion was the National Television Awards – before their appearance together on Strictly had even been announced.
Don’t get me wrong, I have often covered the drink-fuelled bash as a showbusiness journalist and it is not unusual for television stars to display warm feelings towards one another.
But witnessing Pete and Jowita, it was obvious to me then that their connection had a different level of intensity.
Pete Wicks and Jowita Przystal kiss passionately at London’s O2 Arena last Friday night
The pair proved to be a sizzling partnership during last year’s Strictly Come Dancing series
The professional dancer and former The Only Way Is Essex star reached the semi-finals
He couldn’t help but admire Jowita – who was wearing a gorgeous light-blue halter neck dress, which showed off her toned midriff. He told her she looked ‘stunning’ as he chatted to her in a quiet corridor, just off the VIP room behind the stage.
Leaning in close, deep in conversation, Wicks placed a gentle hand on her shoulder. They had clearly formed a very close bond in the short time they had been rehearsing for the BBC dance show and I was excited to see where their relationship would go.
As always with Pete’s love life, however, things were not straightforward.
Not long after that night, he began publicly dating Love Island star Maura Higgins. A full-blown relationship ensued – and then ended in acrimony in February after a series of fiery rows.
And despite Pete’s representatives rather ludicrously dismissing last Friday’s on-stage kisses as meaningless, and insisting that he and Jowita are just friends, those close to the pair say the relationship has definitely become romantic.
A friend of Jowita told me: ‘She adores Peter and thinks he is an old-school charmer. Last month he took her on a date to see Oasis at Wembley, and that O2 performance was his idea.
‘They are both free spirits and love having a lot of fun together. She knows exactly how to put a smile on his face and he does the same for her. Their connection is the real deal.’
When I pressed my source on the ‘just friends’ rebuttal, they responded: ‘You don’t go snogging your friends. And certainly not three times.’
And yet, as ever, there is a complicating factor. Just days before the sizzling O2 performance, Pete was spotted kissing a mystery blonde at The Maine restaurant in Mayfair, central London. Once again Pete – who has previously dated reality TV stars Megan McKenna, Chloe Sims, and Ella Rae Wise – appears to be earning the label ‘commitment-phobe’. He doesn’t even dispute it himself, writing in his memoir that people have called him ‘the arrogant Lothario. The grumpy git. The bad boy’.
He confessed: ‘To be honest, most of that is true.
‘I’ve definitely got a fear of commitment. It’s the standard cliché of abandonment, fear of people leaving.
‘That probably has been driven by different things that have happened in my life. It probably doesn’t mean I will be on my own forever.’
Friends of Pete certainly hope that he will settle down eventually, insisting ‘he is a lovely guy, who deserves the best’.
‘Pete doesn’t rush into relationships, despite his reputation. He certainly doesn’t like to hurt those he loves with his indecision,’ said one.
Jowita is certainly enjoying her time with him. Taking to her Instagram account after Friday’s sexy performance, she told fans: ‘I’m still buzzing after last night… and to be honest I feel absolutely speechless.
‘Massive thank you to everyone who came to watch, thank you for all your beautiful messages, your support means everything. And last but not least Pete Wicks for making my dream come true.
‘Had the best night ever. More to come. J.’
Friends of the pair have no doubt that there is more to come. One said Pete and Jowita were a ‘great fit’ and are ‘always laughing’ when they are together.
‘They’re gorgeous, they’re having fun and long may it continue.’
Meanwhile, Jowita – who has previously dated Strictly professional Giovanni Pernice – is appearing on the current series of the dance show, paired with 63-year-old Ross King, the showbusiness correspondent for ITV’s Good Morning Britain and Lorraine. Will their routines contain quite the same level of spice she achieved with self-confessed ladies’ man Pete? Only time will tell.