Exclusive! Anton Du Beke doesn’t think there’ll be a Strictly Come Dancing romance this year…

It's that time of year where we all forgo leaving our houses to spend our time and money and LIFE investing in Strictly Come Dancing and the X Factor.

heatworld got some time to exclusively interview Strictly star and stalwart Anton Du Beke, who is working with the National Lottery as part of their National Lottery Awards campaign.

Strictly beat X Factor in the ratings war a few weeks ago – why do you think people love it so much?

Strictly is the sort of show that you can sit and watch with your whole family and they will all love it for different reasons. The mums will love it because the hot dancers are on it, the Dads will love it because Ola is on it, the kids will love it because they love the frocks, the whole family will love it because they want to see how the relationships are developing, whose getting on with who whose not getting on with who, we’re waiting to see Craig say something rude about Iwan Thomas’ tight shirt or we can’t wait to see what Darcey says about Peter Andre’s bottom. There’s all these wonderful reasons why we love Strictly.

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Do you think Simon Cowell will regret saying “If it’s us versus Peter Andre, I’ve got to put money on us”?

Ha ha ha well you know the thing about Strictly it’s not just about the one person it’s about the show, the whole show is so much more. I haven’t seen X Factor for a bit but so I don’t know how their show is going but you know that’s the joy, I mean anything he says is tongue in cheek anyway. It’s all a bit of banter and we love all that .

People have said the line-up isn’t as strong this year – what do you make of that?

Oh I think they’ve misjudged it. Everybody who is on the show is a household name. People don’t want it to be ridiculous.

Everyone was waiting to see who Kristina would be paired with (after starting a relationship with her former dancer partner, Ben Cohen)…

I think her and Daniel are going to be charming, because Daniel (O’Donnell) is really charming and I think Kristina is going to look so gorgeous in his arms. I think its going to be a lovely partnership and I think she is going to pitch it right choreographically.

People are saying some of the partnerships were made intentionally to avoid too much sexiness…

I don’t know what I’m not party to those conversations, I mean she’s not the only sexy girl on the show So still lots of sexiness? There’s plenty of that going on. You’ve got Brendon Cole who is too sexy for words

Do you think we’ll see any Strictly romances this year? It always tends to happen..

What do you mean it always tends to happen? It doesn’t always happen. I don’t know actually, I don’t think so

Tell us about the work you’ve been doing with the National Lottery.

I went up and visited the Strathcarron Hospice and they do this wonderful service which is hospice at home where they will look after you in your own home. Of course this can’t happen without the funding of the National Lottery and they received £2,000 towards the great work that they do [by winning Best Health Project at the National Lottery Awards].

How did they react?

They were really excited because they had no idea that they’d won so they were all gathered there for what they thought was going to be something else and then I walk in with the award and surprise them and it was really lovely. There was a lady there whose daughter had recently just passed away from brain cancer and she’s only in her 20s this girl, and it’s beyond sad but they were able to look after her in her own house surrounded by her family and her friends and her things. They let you live every minute of your life until the end comes. They are incredible up there they do such an incredible job and I’m in awe of them all really.