As fans will know, the actress and the professional dancer have remained firm friends since their triumph in the ballroom

Strictly Come Dancing’s 2023 winners Vito Coppola and Ellie Leach(Image: Vito Coppola Instagram)

Ellie Leach was left making a sweet public admission about Vito Coppola before hilariously calling him out as the dancer was seen alongside one of the Strictly Come Dancing judges.

As fans will know, the actress and the professional dancer have remained firm friends since their triumph in the ballroom on the hit dance show back in 2023.

They emerged victorious during the 21st series of Strictly after seeing off stiff competition from Layton Williams and Nikita Kuzmin and Bobby Brazier and Dianne Buswell in a rare three-couple final.

As mentioned, they became great friends in the process and were last reunited earlier this year both in Manchester during the Strictly Come Dancing Live 2025 tour and virtually after Ellie joined Vito’s online dance class live from Italy to mark International Women’s Day.

While they continue to stay in touch, with Ellie previously revealing they are in constant contact via messages, Ellie couldn’t help but publicly share how much she is missing her former dance partner.

Taking to her Instagram Story, the former Coronation Street star shared a video from her memories in which they could be seen in a clothing shop with Vito putting up a a pair of tight striped shorts to his body, seemingly looking at whether they were worth a purchase.

Ellie reshared the year-old video on Instagram with a new message(Image: Ellie Leach Instagram)

“Miss being silly with you @vitocoppola,” Ellie wrote alongside the clip, which she had originally posted back in April 2024. Vito then reshared the post himself and commented in view of his own followers: “I should have not listened to you and bought them!!!”

And while she misses him, Ellie was also quick to hilariously call Vito out as he was seen in a video alongside Strictly’s head judge Shirley Ballas as they travelled back from Blackpool together where they had been judging the European Championships.

They were seen taking part in the ‘Price Tag’ trend taking over TikTok using Jessie J’s hit song as they promoted their next joint dance class. The caption of the post read: “Shirley and Vito just wanna make the world dance! And they’ll be doing just that at their next class.

“They’re heading home after an AWESOME time with you all at @thecrownballroom. But don’t worry, they’ll both be RETURNING next month…”

But Ellie was among the first to comment as she said: “Whatever words you want @vitocoppola,” to which Vito replied: “[crying laughing emojis] why you always notice everything. Ahahah.”

However, she said in a seperate comment: “slay @shirleyballas.” And Vito said in his own post: “I promise I read the lyrics many times…”