Amber Davies and Nikita Kuzmin on Strictly Come Dancing on September 27, 2025 / BBC
Nikita Kuzmin has spoken of his joy at returning to this year’s Strictly Come Dancing with a new partner after a tumultuous first week.
Just days before the first live show last Saturday, Kuzmin’s partner Dani Dyer was forced to pull out of the show with an ankle injury, but within hours he had secured a new partner in the form of West End star Amber Davies.
As a result the pair only began training the day before the live show but nevertheless managed to pull off an impressive performance to finish joint third on the week one leaderboard.
“Honestly I was just happy to be able to be part of the best show on telly, because it was obviously so, so gutting all of this happening,” he told Strictly: It Takes Two.
“I would have whipped out whatever you wanted me to whip out at that moment just to come back to Strictly, baby. I’m willing to do whatever you want!”
He also confirmed that he had checked in with Dyer since his recoupling and she is doing fine.
“Dani is such a lovely, lovely human,” he continued. “I was trying to go back to her and check on her but she was like ‘I’m okay, don’t worry about me, you just have this beautiful journey with Amber, you deserve it.’
“It’s really hard for me to just switch off that, but obviously as well Amber deserves to have her full Strictly journey, you do it only once in your lifetime.”
Amber and Nikita will be back on the Strictly dancefloor – this Saturday at 6.20pm on BBC One – performing a Samba to Camila Cabello and Ed Sheeran’s ‘Bam Bam’.
