EDEN CONFIDENTIAL: Strictly star Nadiya Bychkova hits back at BBC insiders’ claims she was dropped because of her lack of chemistry with the show’s contestants

Strictly Come Dancing viewers were left furious when it was confirmed during Saturday’s launch program that Nadiya Bychkova had not been included in any of this year’s couples.

She is one of the BBC show’s most popular professional dancers, steamrolling to fifth place in 2021 alongside news presenter Dan Walker.

BBC insiders suggested the Ukrainian dancer was rejected due to her lack of chemistry with one of the show’s contestants.

Now the 34-year-old Bychkova has hit back, telling me: ‘It wasn’t that there was no chemistry between me and the dancers.

‘It’s clearly a decision made by the bosses. Unfortunately I wasn’t chosen this year.’

Walker has said the BBC’s decision “feels a bit like Messi being benched for the World Cup final”, adding: “She is so talented, the best teacher anyone could hope for.”

Her boyfriend, fellow Strictly pro Kai Widdrington, 28, has been chosen to partner TV presenter Angela Rippon, 78, for the series.

Looking on the bright side, Nadiya says she will have more time to spend with her daughter from a previous relationship with Slovenian footballer Matija Skarabot.

“I’m taking her to school,” she tells me at the Atelier Zuhra show during London Fashion Week, held at Somerset House. ‘I’m disappointed career-wise, but I get to spend more time with my daughter, which is wonderful. I get all the positives out of it.’

She is grateful for the support she has received since it was announced that she had not been selected.

“There’s so much love out there, and the audience keeps me awake,” she says. “I have received so many kind words and they have lifted my spirits.”

The naked courage of the Soho heiress

What happens off the catwalk during London Fashion Week is often more interesting than what’s on it.

I hear that Soho heiress India Rose James came to a show with what she described as a ‘red, blotchy, swollen face’, without make-up, because she wanted to inspire other people suffering from eczema and dermatitis.

“I’m going to feel insecure, but I’m going to take a stand,” she said. ‘I have a skin condition and I shouldn’t have to hide it.’

James, 31, known as the ‘Princess of Soho’, became richer than the late queen when she inherited £329 million from her grandfather Paul Raymond’s £1 billion Soho Estates empire in 2008.

Fred Sirieix, the frontman of Channel 4 matchmaking show First Dates, appears to have moved to Britain from his native France because he enjoyed kissing girls in the Potteries as a young boy.

“I came to England on an exchange trip,” says the 51-year-old maitre d’.

‘I think I went to Stoke-on-Trent. I had a pen pal there. You went to school and the girls were dressed in uniforms, which I thought was sexy.

“I remember kissing ten girls in fifteen days. It was brilliant, and I think it was one of the reasons I wanted to come to Britain.” Ooh La La!

Flower power for the girls of Bowie

Some daughters object to being compared to their mothers, but David Bowie’s girl, Alexandria Zahra Jones, has no complaints. On the other hand, her mother is supermodel Iman.

Alexandria, 23, who goes by Lexi, says she was ‘accidentally twinned’ with Iman, 68, when they both wore floral dresses on a night out.

Lexi, who last month launched an art and clothing label selling quirky prints and clothing, said: ‘I have struggled with mental health issues for most of my life. Art has always been a way for me to get out of dark places.’

Civil servants were so concerned about Boris Johnson’s chances of survival when he was in hospital with Covid in 2020 that his deputy was ready to take over, former Downing Street chief of staff Lord Lister has revealed.

“A formal letter had been drawn up for the Queen to sign because she would have to hand over power to Dominic Raab,” says Edward Lister in Ben Riley-Smith’s new book, The Right To Rule. “Boris may have been incapacitated or even deceased.”

Lister recalls Johnson “coughing and spluttering” during a video call, adding: “He mumbled, ‘God, this is terrible’, and the comment stuck because Boris rarely complained of illness.”

Richard E. Grant has described the pain of selling the vacation home in Provence where he and his wife, Joan Washington, would spend their summers swimming, dancing and partying.

“I’ve been packing everything for the last two days in preparation for the moving company,” says Withnail And I star Grant, 66.

‘My late wife, our daughter and I have had this holiday home in the South of France for the past 33 years, with full memories. . . sounds so echoey now. It feels like a second death.’

Aberdeen-born Washington, a voice coach, died in 2021, just eight months after being diagnosed with stage four lung cancer.

Will rom-com king Curtis finally get married?

They may have been together for decades and have four children, but Four Weddings And A Funeral writer Richard Curtis and his partner Emma Freud have never married. Has Curtis, 66, finally popped the question?

In a newspaper article published this weekend, the film writer and director referred to 61-year-old Freud as his fiancée, sparking speculation that they might exchange vows.

The great-granddaughter of psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud does not deny the claim.

“We’ve been together for 35 years, that’s what you call someone,” she tells me. “Girlfriend” and “boyfriend” have always been such a strange thing to say when we’ve spent most of our lives together. I think it was just the word he used that day.”