Coronation Street star and Strictly winner opens up on ‘relationship scrutiny’

**Ellie Leach won the latest series of Strictly Come Dancing (Picture: Getty)**

Former Coronation Street star Ellie Leach revealed the challenging relationship scrutiny she faced while filming Strictly Come Dancing.

The Coronation Street actress, 22, and her pro partner, 31, won the glitterball trophy (which she’s since broken) after going up in the final against Bobby Brazier with Dianne Buswell and Layton Williams with Nikita Kuzmin.

Over their time on the BBC One competition, the couple have stolen the public’s hearts and sent romance rumours swirling, with multiple clues teasing that the infamous Strictly curse had struck.

Despite it previously being thought that Ellie and Vito were an item, it’s recently been rumoured that the Coronation Street actress was actually romantically involved with EastEnders star Bobby.

During Wednesday’s premiere episode of Drama Queens — which follows the lives of various soap stars behind the scenes — Ellie spoke to her mum Karen about life on Strictly.

The Faye Windass actress, 23, said: ‘I think that doing Strictly opened my eyes to being like… in a fishbowl.

**Ellie is one of the soap stars on ITV’s latest show Drama Queens (Picture: ITV)**

‘I didn’t realise that every single thing you did would be put in the papers.’

She added: ‘It’s upsetting that people believe what they read. Nine times out of ten it isn’t true.’

Bobby, 20, reportedly grew close to the soap icon, while competing in the most recent series of Strictly.

They also took part in the arena show earlier this year, but are said to have since gone their separate ways.

According to reports, they realised that they had been spending less time together after returning home from the tour, and decided to call time on their relationship.

**Ellie and Bobby grew close after appearing in the most recent series of Strictly Come Dancing (Picture: Shutterstock)**

‘Love blossomed between them when they were in close quarters on the tour, but once that ended they both spent much less time together,’ an insider claimed.

‘That gave them space to think about the future, which is likely to take them in very different directions over the coming year or two.’

‘So they decided the best thing to do was quit while they were ahead and while they were still pals, because they both really cherish the friendship they have,’ the source added to The Sun.

Neither confirmed the speculation directly, or reports of their split, but were pictured looking very cosy while posing on the red carpet at the press night of Hadestown play in London at the start of the year