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Strictly Come Dancing: Jamie Laing compares curse to incest

He's competing on the 2019 series

Jamie Laing has compared the Strictly Come Dancing “curse” to incest.

The Made in Chelsea star – who is set to compete in the new series of the BBC Latin and ballroom contest – suggested it isn’t surprising that some celebrities have embarked on relationships with their professional partners.

He said it’s because they spend so much time working very closely together, regardless of their personal commitments outside of the show.

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He told the Daily Star newspaper: “Everyone talks about this ‘curse’.

“You spend eight hours a day, six days a week with this one person. And if you have ever seen the movie Blue Lagoon with Brooke Shields she ends up sleeping with her brother.

“If you spend a lot of time with your sister you end up sleeping with her. That is the moral of that story. It is a weird moral.

“That is what I am going to say to anyone who asks me about it.

“But if the Strictly curse did happen my answer will be ‘Have you ever watched Blue Lagoon?’ ”

The Professional dancers and celebrities in this years 'Strictly Come Dancing' arrive for rehearsals as they continue in West London with some classic cars being used as props. Pictured: Jamie Laing Ref: SPL5110052 200819 NON-EXCLUSIVE Picture by: Matt Sprake / SplashNews.com Splash News and Pictures Los Angeles: 310-821-2666 New York: 212-619-2666 London: 0207 644 7656 Milan: +39 02 56567623 photodesk@splashnews.com World Rights
Jamie has started Strictly rehearsals this week (Credit: SplashNews.com)

In the 1980 movie, Brooke Shields and Christopher Atkins play cousins who fall in love after getting marooned on a tropical island.

Jamie’s comments came after the 30-year-old star – who is dating Sophie Habboo – recently insisted he doesn’t have any advantage on the show, despite having studied theatre and performance at university.

He said: “Contemporary dance you can do anything you want, I feel like if you’re given some ribbons and you roll about on the floor, everyone is going to be like ‘that is contemporary’.”

Jamie Laing
He has a contemporary dance background, but insists it won’t help (Credit: SplashNews.com)

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And Jamie admitted that his contemporary dance module had put him off dancing for a long time.

He explained: “When it came to finally enrolling in my course, people had already picked what they wanted to do and the only thing that was left was contemporary dance.

“So for the whole first year I had to do contemporary dance. As I was the only boy, I had to be the bulb in the flowers and all the girls were petals.

“All of my friends were sitting in the front row and they were all laughing at me and I thought ‘this sucks’, so my experience of dance has been skewed a bit by that.

“It was the worst thing in the world, I’d wake up every day and think ‘why have I done this.'”

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Carena Crawford
Associate Editor (Soaps)