When Maura Higgins hit the red carpet at the Pride of Britain Awards on Monday night, all eyes were on her.
The Love Island star showed off a bold new look, styled by celebrity hairdresser Carl Bembridge, who cut her long locks into an elegant bob.
And as she posed in a stunning £972 black Dodona Avdiu dress, which showed off her hard-to-miss embon point, it wasn’t just the paparazzi’s attention that she caught.
Maura Higgins turned heads at the Pride of Britain Awards this week with her amazing outfit
She posed in a stunning £972 black Dodona Avdiu dress, which showed off her hard-to-miss embon point
Because I can reveal that later that night, at an exclusive after-party at the Red Bar of London’s Grosvenor House Hotel, the Irish beauty locked lips with Strictly star Pete Wicks.
A kiss is just a kiss, they say. But this steamy clinch could threaten Pete’s future on Saturday night’s BBC show – the last thing the scandal-hit program needs.
Long-haired lothario Pete has also grown close to his Polish dance partner Jowita Przystal – and she will no doubt be hurt by his very public display with Maura.
Friends of Pete tell me he’s “playing with fire” by combining the affections of two women while appearing on the show.
Maura stunned fans as she looked cozy with Kai Widdrington at the afterparty
Pete Wicks and Maura Higgins attended the Bafta Awards in May
His exploits are just the latest chapter in Strictly Come Dancing’s long history of love, lust and intrigue.
When Pete, 36, met Jowita, 30, on the show a few weeks ago, producers discovered their “instant chemistry.” At last month’s National Television Awards, the two were spotted getting ‘cosy’ – which seemed to confirm their blossoming romance.
Just last week, Pete opened up about Jowita, telling Olivia Attwood’s So Wrong It’s Right podcast: ‘She’s amazing and we get on really well. She’s honestly one of the nicest people I’ve ever met… She’s very positive, she’s very kind, she has a very good sense of humor. So when they paired the partners up, she was the person I was looking for.”
He added: ‘We have really good chemistry because we get along really well.’
In recent weeks, Pete Wicks has fueled romance rumors with Strictly Come Dancing partner Jowita Przystał
On Monday, Maura posted a video to TikTok showing her in Pete Wicks’ muscular arms as he showed off an impressive dance move.
Week after week, fans have praised Pete and Jowita for their electrifying routines that have lit up the dancefloor, including a passionate rumba to Oasis’s Don’t Look Back In Anger on Saturday.
But after the pair passed the strictly public vote and were pictured together on the red carpet on Monday, he was seen getting intimate with Maura at the same party.
Friends say it will be a ‘new blow’ for Jowita, who has become ‘closer and closer’ to heavily tattooed Pete.
The source added: ‘It’s fair to say that Jowita has a special place in her heart for Pete. She really loves him. She thinks he’s so funny and they have so much fun together.
Maura first rose to fame when she appeared on Love Island in 2019
‘She is all too aware of the criticism they face every week and hoped there would be more after their time on the show.’
As always with Strictly, it may take two tangos, but there’s often a third waiting in the wings.
Showing just how complicated the show’s web of relationships is, newly single Strictly dancer Kai Widdrington was also seen making moves with Maura on the same Monday night.
Kai’s ex-girlfriend, fellow Strictly pro Nadiya Bychkova, had emphatically told journalists she was ‘not friends’ with her former partner.
Yet Maura reportedly rejected the advances of the ‘fame-hungry’ Kai on Monday night and kissed Pete instead.
One audience member said of the lusty attendees: “It felt like an episode of Jilly Cooper’s Rivals.”
Maura, 33, has been friends with Pete for years after meeting him on the reality TV circuit.
They have repeatedly shot down romance rumors but were spotted close at the Broadwick Hotel in Soho in August and again at The Ship pub in Wandsworth last month.
Maura then posted a video to TikTok on Monday of her in the hunk’s muscular arms as he showed off an impressive dance move by lifting her off the ground before gazing amorously into her eyes.
“She’s attractive and so it changes the way I look at people,” Pete said. “I think she’s great and we get along really well, and have done so for a long time.”
Pete, who found fame in TV series The Only Way Is Essex, is not the first man to be caught between Maura and Jowita.
Former Strictly heartthrob Giovanni Pernice dated Maura in 2021 and reportedly broke her heart before he started seeing Jowita less than a year later.
In his memoirs released earlier this year, Pete revealed that people called him ‘the arrogant lothario’. The grumpy git. The bad boy.’
He added: “To be honest, most of it is true.”
Now friends are worried that his ‘love of female attention’ will get him into trouble.
An insider tells me: ‘Pete has always had commitment issues, but he has to proceed very carefully. He might like it all a bit, but when you’re on one of the biggest shows on television, it can quickly backfire. He’s playing with fire.’
This Saturday’s Strictly Halloween Special will see Pete and Jowita appear as The Joker and Harley Quinn – two tempestuous lovers from the DC Comics franchise.
If this week’s antics are anything to go by, it’s perfect casting.