'Strictly' dancer Aljaz Skorjanec had to 'beg' now wife Janette Manrara for a date

Strictly’s Aljaz Skorjanec has revealed he had to “beg” his now wife Janette Manrara for a date when they first met.

The pair met more than a decade ago on a dance tour and tied the knot in 2017.

But dancer Skorjanec has now shared that Manrara snubbed him at first.

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Speaking on ITV’s Lorraine, Manrara said: “We met in 2010 when I first came over to London to do a show in the West End. Aljaz was there and that is where kind of the romance began.

"Our love story really was created doing Burn The Floor - we travelled the world and fell in love together while dancing on stage, so it is quite special."

Asked if it was love at first sight, Skorjanec said: "It was on my side, obviously it was, but it wasn’t for Janette."

Manrara chimed in: "We were friends for a whole year, we were friends for a long time before we actually went on our first date."

"But I will admit he definitely tried," she giggled.

Laughing, Skorjanec said by then he was “begging” for a date.

Last year the couple revealed how Strictly had helped their romance, because before the show they faced trying to make a long-distance relationship work between Skorjanec's native Slovenia and Manrara's Los Angeles home.

Manrara told the Sliding Doors podcast of getting the call for the BBC ballroom show: "They called me first and asked me to join the show, I didn’t scream but my face said it all. Within five minutes they called him straight after.

"It was a dream come true.

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"Getting Strictly Come Dancing was the most incredible thing, not just for my career but for my personal life and marriage with Aljaz because if it wasn’t for Strictly, I don’t know if we could have worked through the long-distance thing."

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