Katya Jones has been rumoured to be one of the Strictly Come Dancing professionals set to be axed from the show.

Reports have suggested that the likes of Neil Jones, Gorka Marquez and Katya Jones all could be exiting the programme, with Johannes Radebe also expected to leave this year but of his own accord.

Sources have claimed that Johannes could be signing up for a big on stage production, which would need him to commit for several months and meaning he couldn’t take party in the new series of Strictly.

A source said recently: “The review of the line-up has always been about making a fresh start, and that was always going to be affected by which dancers performed well this series. Of the five names in the mix almost all of them went out in the first half of the series, which is very much seen as a landmark point for Strictly. It couldn’t have come at a worse time for them, because Strictly bosses feel they need to make some major changes, even if that means big names leaving.”

Wynne and Katya were partnered up on the most recent series ( 
Image:
Image: BBC)

Katya has now broken silence on returning for another series of the hit BBC show. She exclusively told The Mirror: “Am I hoping to be back? Well this year would be my 10th on Strictly so I am hoping for a round number.”

Katya and her dancing partner Wynne Evans hit the headlines during the most recent series, when the pair made a ‘silly joke’ after fans claimed Katya was uncomfortable when she moved Wynne’s hand from her waist in a live TV moment.

Speaking on It Takes Two at the time, she said: “I just want to get something out of the way that I feel overshadowed our performance for absolutely no reason. Quite frankly I can’t bear sitting here watching this man being portrayed as someone he is no. And in fact it couldn’t be further away from the truth, so I have to make this absolutely clear, that this whole incident with the hand and the high-five on Saturday night, it was an inside joke between Wynne and I. Was it a silly joke? Yes. Was it a bad joke? Yes.”

Wynne added in a separate interview: “I’m absolutely heartbroken by the things that have been written about me in the last day. It’s not nice to live in that time, but basically Katya and I are really, really close and we’re really good friends, and on Saturday we made a stupid joke. It was a stupid joke that went wrong, OK? We thought it was funny. It wasn’t funny. It has been totally misinterpreted.”