{"id":337983,"date":"2025-08-12T08:31:15","date_gmt":"2025-08-12T08:31:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/337983\/"},"modified":"2025-08-12T08:31:15","modified_gmt":"2025-08-12T08:31:15","slug":"strictly-come-dancing-eastenders-star-balvinder-sopal-announced-as-fifth-contestant-for-2025-series","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/337983\/","title":{"rendered":"Strictly Come Dancing: EastEnders star Balvinder Sopal announced as fifth contestant for 2025 series"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Strictly Come Dancing<\/a> has announced EastEnders<\/a> star Balvinder Sopal as the fifth celebrity contestant to join the 2025 series<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The actor is best known for playing Walford matriarch Suki Kaur Panesar<\/a> (now Unwin) on EastEnders since 2019. She said of the news: \u201cWorking on EastEnders and being a part of Strictly Come Dancing is the stuff that dreams are made of.\u201d<\/p>\n

As Suki, she has been at the heart of some of the soap;s most gripping storylines, from escaping her abusive husband Nish (Navin Chowdhry) to her on-off affair with Eve Unwin (Heather Peace).<\/p>\n

Away from Albert Square, Sopal has also appeared in Call The Midwife, Doctors, and Waterloo Road. <\/p>\n

The actor joins reality TV star Dani Dyer<\/a>, actor Alex Kingston, football coach Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink<\/a> and Gladiators<\/a> star Harry Aikines-Aryeetey as contestants. <\/p>\n

Sopal said \u201cbeing on Strictly is a dream that I held on to, with no proof that it would ever happen\u201d, adding: \u201cI\u2019m far too excited to put into words how I feel but I\u2019m incredibly excited at the prospect of dancing across the ballroom!\u201d<\/p>\n

The news was revealed from Albert Square on Tuesday (12 August) on ITV\u2019s Good Morning Britain<\/a>, where Sopal revealed she has past dancing experience.<\/p>\n

\u201cI dabbled a little bit, I did ballroom and Latin as a hobby and really loved it. When you’ve got a passion for something, you’re more inclined to enjoy it.”<\/p>\n

Dyer, the daughter of EastEnders actor Danny Dyer, rose to fame after winning Love Island in 2018. She said of her appointment: \u201cGetting the opportunity to be on Strictly is the second most amazing thing I\u2019ve done this year.<\/p>\n

\"\u2018Strictly<\/p>\n

open image in gallery<\/p>\n

\u2018Strictly Come Dancing\u2019 announces \u2018EastEnders\u2019 star Balvinder Sopal as fifth contestant for 2025 series (BBC)<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel very very blessed and cannot wait to get my dancing shoes on,\u201d the 28-year-old TV personality added.<\/p>\n

Actor Kingston, known for playing Elizabeth Corday in US medical drama ER and River Song in sci-fi show Doctor Who, said she was inspired to join the show after seeing her friend, Miranda actor Sarah Hadland, finish as a runner up on last year\u2019s series.<\/p>\n

\"\u2018Gladiators\u2019<\/p>\n

open image in gallery<\/p>\n

\u2018Gladiators\u2019 star and Olympic sprinter Harry Aikines-Aryeetey has also joined the \u2018Strictly\u2019 line-up (BBC)<\/p>\n

Dutch football star Hasselbaink, who currently works alongside Gareth Southgate as assistant coach for the England football team, said the dancing competition will bring him \u201ctotally out of my comfort zone\u201d.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, 36-year-old Aikines-Aryeetey, known as Nitro to Gladiators fans, said: \u201cI’m so excited to be part of the Strictly family this series and I’m ready to give it all I’ve got.\u201d<\/p>\n

The athlete, a former Team GB sprinter who joined Gladiators in 2023, took part in last year’s Strictly Come Dancing Christmas Special alongside professional dancer Nancy Xu.<\/p>\n

Aikines-Aryeetey said the Christmas Special \u201cwas so nice I just had to do it twice\u201d.<\/p>\n

The remaining contestants will be announced throughout August. The rumoured names <\/a>include former GB athlete Mo Farah and Sort Your Life Out presenter Stacey Solomon.<\/p>\n

Strictly Come Dancing airs on BBC One from September through to December.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Your support helps us to tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":335756,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3937],"tags":[77,382,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-337983","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-tv","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115014866668776584","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337983","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=337983"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337983\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/335756"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=337983"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=337983"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=337983"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}