Strictly Come Dancing is a British dance contest show in which celebrities’ partner with professional dancers to compete in mainly ballroom and Latin dance. The TV show has been running for 20 years and has been exported to 60 other countries.
The show has been engulfed in a bullying and toxic behavioural scandal over the past few months, with serious allegations made by predominantly female contestants against their male professional dance partners, resulting in two male professionals leaving the show.
The workplace harassment scandal started with the withdrawal from the show of actor Amanda Abbington in 2023, having missed the previous weekend’s live show on medical grounds.
Despite initially releasing a statement, subsequently deleted, expressing her regret to have left the show and thanking the production team and fellow competitors, unconfirmed reports alleged that she had demanded footage of her rehearsals with her professional male dance partner, and was considering legal advice about her time on the show.
The BBC published a statement “The BBC offers a comprehensive range of support to all individuals taking part in our shows. Strictly Come Dancing has always taken duty of care incredibly seriously and there is a constant dialogue between senior members of the production team and the contestants to ensure any concerns are addressed swiftly.”
It concluded: “Strictly has a proud track record as a joyful, positive experience where robust support and assistance is always made available at every stage of the production.”
This was followed with the actress, Amanda Abbington being targeted by apparent fans of the show and trolls sending threats and abuse, resulting in her revealing that she was suffering from mild PTSD after Strictly for several reasons. She has subsequently stated that she had thought long and hard before making a complaint to the BBC about the behaviour of her former dance partner due to the backlash she would receive.
An investigation commenced, and over time several other contestants have revealed that the treatment that they were subjected to during training was of concern.
This week, it was revealed that one professional dancer abused his female celebratory partner, and shouted and kicked her. On one occasion she ran from the training room and locked herself in the bathroom. The dancer has been dismissed and expressed regret.
The truth is that the world of professional dancing is a brutally competitive profession with the dancers often having been training since a very young age. The TV show brings together professional dancers from across the world, albeit currently to two male dancers who have left are both Italian.
Some commentators have suggested that the competitive nature of the professional dancers, who are often poorly paid but can significantly increase their income should they be successful on the show, and the often-pampered lives of the ‘celebrities’ has been the cause of this scandal.
When viewed through the prism of toxic behaviour in the workplace, the allegations and the concerns of those involved in coming forward with their complaints fits an identified pattern that Defuse reported in our white paper titled ‘The Inside Threat’, where we looked at concerning and threatening workplace behaviours.
In that paper we reported that on average,12.5% of workers in the EU experienced some form of adverse social behaviour at work in 2021. What was clear was that woman experiencing adverse social behaviour at work was consistently higher than that of men.
Our white paper suggests that 29% of UK employees have been the victims of workplace bullying and harassment. That’s nearly three in every ten workers and would equate to 9.1 million of the UK’s workforce. Furthermore, two-thirds of women have reported that they have been a victim of sexual harassment at work, sometimes criminally.
One of the greatest challenges is that lack of reporting of behavioural concerns in the workplace, with some research suggesting that as much as 90% goes unreported.
When this is compared to sexual harassment, it is estimated that up to 75% of that goes unreported in the workplace. It is perhaps for that reason that the law in the UK is changing as from October 2024, when organisations must demonstrate that they are taking reasonable steps to prevent such behaviour, with significant commercial penalties for those that fail to do so.
According to research published in the US, there are four good reasons why so few report their concerns. F.S. Calhoun and S.W. Weston, in their February 2023 paper, ‘Imagining the Unimaginable to Prepare for the Unthinkable: Criteria for Detecting, Reporting, and Acting to Thwart Intended Violence’, published in the Journal of Threat Assessment and Management, report the following reasons:
They don’t know what to report
They don’t know who to report their concerns to
They don’t trust the process to be acted on professionally
They fear that they will face reprisals or be exposed
What this TV scandal does is shine a light of the toxic behaviour that entertainment business still experiences. This should of course be obvious following the scandals of Harvey Weinstein but the BAFTA award winning film director Brian Hill cautions that “people are frightened to reveal themselves, because they think they’ll be blacklisted and won’t get jobs if they report bullies at work,” He went on to tell the BBC “”People fear their income will suffer, and they won’t get a good reference.”
They think this, because that has often been the case. There are plenty of cases in which actors have reported their concerns, only to be targeted by trolls, work opportunities drying up and their mental health suffering.
The 2022 Film and TV Charity’s Looking Glass research, the third annual survey focusing on mental health within the film and TV industry found that only 11% believe that the industry is a mentally healthy place to work; while 83% said that its culture had a negative effect on their wellbeing.
Despite this the survey suggested that there has been a significant decrease in the incidence of bullying, harassment or discrimination, with 46% experienced bullying, harassment or discrimination in 2022, down from 53% in 2021.
However, consistent with the research by Calhoun and Weston, bullying, harassment or discrimination was frequently not reported. Perhaps understandably, 45% of those in management roles who had dealt with bullying complaints did not feel appropriately skilled to do so. Two-thirds of this group wanted more line management training, including training targeted specifically at dealing with behavioural complaints.
Strictly Come Dancing has stated that it is going to introduce chaperones to monitor and support the celebrities in future. However, I think the problem is bigger that what is happening with Strictly Come Dancing.
If, like me you enjoy TV and films, this makes for depressing reading. I assume that to be at their creative best, those entertaining me must feel safe to express themselves and be creatively vulnerable. That goes beyond the actors and must include the many unsung heroes behind the scenes too.
“The show must go on” is a phrase in show business, meaning that regardless of what happens, the planned performance still must be staged. Perhaps we need to rethink this.
Regular readers will know I am a supporter of behavioural threat management, and show business can benefit from introducing this methodology to identify behaviours of concern together with recognising those whose behaviour has changed and who may be suffering from being abused, threatened and physical at harm.
