Katya Jones has acknowledged the toll of several high-profile incidents during her nine years on Strictly Come Dancing, saying one controversy prompted a breakdown but that she would not change her experiences as they helped shape her career.
In an interview with OK!, the 36-year-old professional dancer said she has learned to separate her public life from her private one and to focus on the work. "People can like or dislike me, they can criticise me, but not my work if I do it well," she said. "It’s like I have two parallel lives – my public life and what really happens in my life. They co-exist but they’re not the same."
Jones, who joined the BBC ballroom show in 2016 and has been partnered with figures including Ed Balls, Adam Peaty and Joe McFadden — with whom she won the contest — said the aftermath of the first major scandal was particularly difficult. She recalled that about a year after the 2018 episode in which she was photographed kissing her then dance partner Seann Walsh, she read upsetting online comments and "had a breakdown in my car." She said she phoned her mother, who was at a gym class, and was met not with sympathy but a blunt admonishment that helped her move on. "Stop crying! Do you think everybody’s going to be nice to you? No. So wipe your tears and go and crack on with your job. You’re good at it and you signed up to it," Jones quoted.
The 2018 photograph of Jones and Walsh kissing during a night out made front-page news at the time. Jones was married to fellow professional dancer Neil Jones then; the couple split about 10 months later and have since remained on friendly terms. Rebecca Humphries, Seann Walsh’s then-girlfriend, publicly criticised Walsh after the images emerged.
Jones addressed other headline-grabbing moments that have surrounded her Strictly appearances. During the 2022 series, reports of tension with her partner Tony Adams emerged after viewers and some sources suggested she was "working him too hard" in rehearsals. A moment on a live show in which the former footballer appeared animated with Jones prompted speculation of a row; both subsequently downplayed the reports. Adams later told Good Morning Britain that he found the learning process "brutal" and admitted he struggled emotionally while on the programme, while praising Jones’s choreography.
More recently, Jones and her 2024 partner Wynne Evans, a Welsh opera singer, were the focus of online comment after a live-show clip appeared to show Evans moving his hand along Jones’s waist before she pushed it away, and another clip showed an awkward attempt at a high five. Both performers described the exchanges as a private, ill-judged joke and denied there was any rift. Jones told It Takes Two that she would not want Evans "portrayed as someone he's not" and said she could see how the moment was misinterpreted.
Wynne Evans was later removed by the BBC in May after The Mail on Sunday reported he had made a lewd comment about another professional dancer at the launch of the Strictly live tour, a development that the BBC announced separately.
Reflecting on how she now deals with scrutiny, Jones said she tries to block out outside noise by concentrating on rehearsals and keeping her personal life private. She told OK! that while some periods "could have gone either way," she would not change what happened because the experiences made her who she is. Jones’s remarks come as the show prepares for a new series, where professional dancers and celebrity partners alike again face intense public attention on and off the dancefloor.