BBC Strictly Come Dancing result leaker says 'it was an accident' as he 'sets record straight'

The man behind the weekly leak of the Strictly Come Dancing results has said starting his weekly task was 'an accident' as he 'sets the record straight' on his relationship with the BBC.

Most fans of the hit dance show will know that while the programme airs live on a Saturday evening during its 13 week run at the end of every year, the results show on a Sunday night is pre-recorded directly after the main show. Tess Daly, Claudia Winkleman and the judges will be seen coming back into the studio wearing new outfits and everyone talks about "last night's performances" before who is in the dreaded dance-off is revealed and then the latest exit.

However, enter Dave Thorp, the brains behind StrictlySpoiler, a website dedicated to leaking the results each week before the BBC has a chance to air them, which he has now been doing for a decade. According to the Metro, his website garners up to 500,000 views at times, and many Strictly fanatics subscribe to his Patreon or PayPal service. This allows Mr Thorp to pursue StrictlySpoiler full-time while studying.

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Explaining how StrictlySpoiler was born, Mr Thorp told the publication: "It was a little bit of an accident. I was originally a member of a spoiler thread on a discussion forum and mentioned on Twitter that I had the spoiler.

"I would get people on there asking me to DM them the results, which I did. Eventually, it got to a point where quite a few people were asking, so I put the spoiler on a blog that I was running at the time, linked to it on Twitter, and a couple of years later I got a Google search ranking, and it just snowballed from there."

But Mr Thorp was keen to set the record straight on whether he is causing stressful weekends for those behind the scenes of the hit programme. "There was one occasion in 2015 when [the BBC] claimed the Facebook page that I operate infringed upon their trademarks and got Facebook to temporarily take it down.

"But I appealed that, and the BBC relented and got Facebook to restore the page. That was literally the last time I had any contact with them. I think they’re just happy to maintain the status quo now."