When Tess Daly announced on Saturday night on Strictly that Pete Wicks had made it to the quarter-finals, even he thought she had made a mistake.
At the end of the score for the third time in four weeks, Pete thought his time on the BBC dance show was up. The charming, long-haired reality TV star, who made his name on The Only Way Is Essex (TOWIE), deemed the dreaded dance off inevitable – especially as he was the worst celebrity entertainer.
Pete, 36, and his professional partner Jowita Przystal scored just 29 out of 40 for their tango to Phil Collins and Philip Bailey’s Easy Lover, while rival celebrities Montell Douglas (who scored 37) and Jamie Borthwick (32) faced off instead to the final. -head performance.
And it was EastEnders actor Jamie and his partner Michelle Tsiakkas who were axed.
Pete told Strictly spin-off show It Takes Two: “I thought I was going (home) from week one, so every week is a surprise, but that’s possibly the biggest surprise of all.”
Explaining his obvious surprise that night, he added: “I didn’t really understand why we were in the bottom two and I thought they meant Montell had passed.”
As the final three weeks of Strictly loom, Pete, the least outstanding dancer, has reached the quarter-finals and could even have the chance to lift the glitter ball.
Comments from the show’s judges suggest that she long ago reached the limits of her dancing ability. But, as the public vote has shown, viewers have gone crazy for him, especially female Strictly fans. “Everyone is a bit baffled by the Pete phenomenon,” a Strictly source said. ‘If it was based on the judges, there’s no way it would still be there.
Viewers have gone crazy for Pete Wicks, especially female fans, for his performances with Strictly pro Jowita Przystal.
More recently, Pete has been linked to Love Island favorite Maura Higgins, who is currently competing on I’m A Celebrity.
If rumors are to be believed, Pete and Jowita, seen leaving a dance studio together in North London, have become quite close.
So what’s the appeal of ‘Pirate Pete’, the scruffy, tattooed ladies’ man? His nickname comes from his supposed resemblance to Johnny Depp’s character Captain Jack Sparrow in Pirates of the Caribbean, and those who know him say he is “totally charismatic” and “a very cheeky rascal.”
With his brooding gaze and shaggy mane of hair that falls over his muscular shoulders, Pete, known as something of a heartthrob in showbiz circles, looks more like a wrestler than a ballroom dancer.
“Female viewers seem to absolutely love him,” the source said. “A lot of Strictly viewers probably hadn’t heard of him because he’s from TOWIE, but he won them over instantly.
‘Even the women in the studio are fainting: the crew and the audience members. It seems even Strictly fans can’t resist a bad boy. In fact, hundreds of comments on social networks reveal the popularity of ‘The Pirate’ among the program’s female audience. One user wrote: “Seeing Pete Wicks thighs makes my Saturday nights happy.”
Another said: “OMG Pete Wicks brings the sexy every week.”
Even the show’s matriarch, Shirley Ballas, has struggled to hide the gleam in her eyes as she casts her critical gaze on Pete. The show’s head judge was accused by fans of overrating the star, giving her an eight compared to a low four from another judge in week nine.
She told him: ‘Your hips were swaying from left to right. It was very entertaining. I don’t think I’ll forget this night for a long time. Not that Pete had been shocked. Once dubbed TV’s Biggest Lothario, he boasted about having threesomes in past relationships and even pursuing Carol Vorderman, 63, after she admitted enjoying relationships with younger men.
Pete first found fame in 2015 as a regular on ITV2’s TOWIE, where he became known for his fiery romance with co-star Megan McKenna and an endless stream of cheating accusations. Since then, he has dated a host of glamorous reality TV stars, including Love Island’s Amber Davies and Megan Barton-Hanson, as well as TOWIE co-star Chloe Sims.
Last year, after flying to Australia to support his friend Sam Thompson on I’m A Celebrity, he was seen flirting with actress Danielle Harold after she was booted from the show.
More recently he has been linked to another Love Island favourite, Maura Higgins, who is currently competing in the jungle.
But those who know Pete say his image is much more carefully constructed than viewers might think. In what may be another smart move to keep him on Strictly, he appears to be using a circle of popular showbiz friends, including I’m A Celebrity winner Sam, 32, his partner, former Strictly star , Zara McDermott, 27, and another former I’m A Celebrity winner Vicky Pattison, 37, to help him connect with fans.
Between them, the tight-knit circle boasts a staggering 13 million followers on Instagram alone, using it at every opportunity to support Pete and keep him in the competition.
And then there’s Jowita. In a series in which professional dancers are careful about their behavior around famous couples following the scandals involving Giovanni Pernice and Graziano Di Prima, the female professionals don’t seem to have the same scruples.
Every weekend Jowita is seen being very sensitive towards Pete, usually rubbing his arms as they take their places on the dance floor.
But if the rumors are to be believed, they’ve become quite close: Pete is apparently in a love triangle with Maura and Jowita. Maura, 34, insists she is single and Pete’s publicist is more than happy for viewers to think he and Jowita are dating.
As one source put it: ‘The chemistry between them has been electric for weeks, but now it’s really started to grow. Everyone can see it, they can’t keep their hands off each other.’
Polish beauty Jowita, 30, who also dated former Strictly dancer Pernice, may find Pete unsuitable for a long-term romance. As one of his friends tells me: ‘He wants people to think he’s a shameless scoundrel, but he rarely commits.
“It’s a lot of fun at first and then it ends in heartbreak, but women love the bad boy vibe it gives off.”
And millions of them, it seems, are strict viewers, voting every week to keep Pirate Pete on the show.