As well as the 15 celebrities being put through their paces, there are going to be some extra new faces entering the Strictly Come Dancing ballroom this year.

Following the much-publicised exits of Strictly hosts Tess Daly and Claudia Winkleman at the end of 2025, the show has unveiled its new presenting team, with the usual duo of hosts being bumped up to a trio.

Yes, this time around, TV presenter Emma Willis, comedian Josh Widdicombe and Strictly professional Johannes Radebe are taking over at the helm of the long-running dance show.

With just weeks to go until their first live show, the three-piece team recently took part in a press event attended by HuffPost UK, where they lifted the lid on how their trio came to be, what fans should expect from them as hosts and how they’re feeling about stepping into the ballroom together for the first time.

Here’s everything we learned…

Well, to be honest, they’re still not sure either.

“I wish we knew!” Emma claimed. “We’re having loads of production days where we kind of go in and we play around and just feel it out really, aren’t we?

“So, nothing’s really set in stone at this point. Hopefully, in the next few weeks, it will all come to light.”

One thing they have ruled out, though, is that rumour one of the new presenting roles is specifically a backstage “roving reporter”.

“It’s not true,” Josh insisted. “It’ll be the three of us in the auditorium, divided up equally. And we’re kind of playing around with it and enjoying finding out our roles.

He added: “Anything where we’re together just feels so good. We don’t want it to feel like it’s divided up because the thing that works so well is that we love working with each other and the chemistry is just brilliant.”

“But you’ll be the judges of that come September!” the comic quipped.

“One of the great things about the three of us coming in is that it’s not like-for-like,” Josh pointed out.

He admitted: “You’d be mad not to feel pressure taking over Strictly, because it’s a British institution. It’s like becoming England manager or prime minister or something like that – only I’d say this is more important.

“Tess and Claudia were legends – you’re following people that literally got MBEs for doing it! And they’re television legends. But, Strictly is about the show, right? We’re just holding it together.”

Emma agreed: “You can’t step into someone else’s shoes. They did their jobs impeccably for many, many years and they sailed that ship beautifully. And we’re not here to step into their shoes and replace them, we’re just here to kind of hold the ship steady. And have a good time.”

Johannes also took a moment to pay homage to Sir Bruce Forsyth, who was the show’s original host when it launched in 2004.

“To Sir Bruce, Tess and Claudia, thank you for giving us a template,” he said. “They had to figure it out, but now we can learn from them.”

Josh added that both Tess and Claudia had been in touch with them to send “really nice messages” of encouragement ahead of their tenure beginning.

“It was quite a long process,” Emma said. “And rightly so, because they really wanted to make sure that they were thorough in meeting all the people they wanted to meet – and doing screentests which, you know, they don’t happen a lot, screentests or chemistry tests.”

As for what these tests involved, Josh recalled: “You turned up and it was… I don’t know what you’d call it. Just a room, I suppose you’d call it, that’s all it was. It was a room with a table with a sparkly cloth, with Motsi and Anton sat behind it, playing themselves.

“And then Joe, the producer, doing an incredible impression of Craig Revel Horwood next to them. And a great Shirley impression…”

“We literally just did a fake show,” Emma continued, describing the experience as being “like a Blue Peter version of Strictly”, while Josh compared it to “Strictly made on a budget of six pounds”.

Josh continued: “They’d show a video of a dance, and then, the floor manager from Strictly would pretend to be a contestant, and you’d interview him as if he was Ed Balls.

“You were reacting to these classic dances, and then you’d send them upstairs – or they’d be sent upstairs to you because you’d have a go at both roles – and by ‘going upstairs’ that meant ‘going three paces across the room to the next person that’s just stood there’. And then, you’d interview them.”

“We weren’t together in the first round, and in the second round, the three of us were put together,” Josh revealed, admitting that “we were just really laughing from the moment it started”.

If you were a little taken aback when the presenting line-up was confirmed earlier this year – rest assured that so were they.

“They did say to us when we went in, ‘we’ve gone a bit rogue here, because a three was not something we’d ever really thought of, but seeing what we’ve seen, we just wondered if you three might work quite well together’,” Emma confessed. “And it turns out, we did!”

“It was actually terrifying to do it,” she admitted, despite her vast experience in live TV, as host of live shows like Big Brother, The Circle and The Voice, as well as This Morning and even the Brit Awards.

“Even the script read-through, I had a script read-through the week before the chemistry test, and I couldn’t read the script, I was so nervous. And I read hundreds of scripts all the time! But I literally could barely speak.”

She continued: “It was almost like it was the first script I’d ever read, and I lost any bit of confidence I had. It was like some kind of parallel universe where I’d never done it before!

“And [that was] partially, I think, because I haven’t screen-tested for anything for a really long time, so I haven’t been in that situation for a while. But it was actually really nice to kind of feel that again, and to feel those nerves, and to feel the want to do something.”

She added: “I felt like a beginner again. It was weird. And then, going into the chemistry tests, it was really exciting, but really nerve-wracking, I think we all felt that.”

Emma later claimed: “I was very diplomatic with myself from the beginning [of the audition process]. I was like, ‘I’m mega grateful that I’m in the mix, I don’t for one second think that I’ll get it, so I’m not going to overthink it, and I’m just going to go through the process, and that will be will be’.

“But when I had to go into that script read-through, I could barely get a word out of my mouth! I was like, ‘this isn’t what will be will be’! This is absolute terror!”

Johannes joined Strictly in 2018 – and while he didn’t get a celebrity partner until his second series, he’s had one ever since, and has gone on to become one of Strictly’s most popular series.

So, was it a difficult decision to step away from being a Strictly pro in order to become its new co-host?

“Darling, it hit me three weeks ago when the professionals went into the rehearsals for the season,” he told HuffPost UK. “And I’m experiencing FOMO as I’m speaking to you, yes. Especially now that the celebs have all been announced, I’m like, ‘oh my goodness’.”

Johannes admitted: “I would have loved to dance with Lacey, because she has said she’s wanted to do the show for a long time, and it just so happens that when I’m not doing it, she is.”

There is one upside, though.

“I’ll be able to rest my bunions and my back!” he enthused. “But I’ll definitely miss that part of the show.”

Josh then claimed that Johannes was “worried about the lack of exercise” now he won’t be training with a celebrity partner everyday, to which he conceded: “I am, it keeps me fit!”

Overall, though, he insisted that it “doesn’t feel like I’m going anywhere” as he’s “still part of the family”.

“The cake is still the same, but the icing is different,” he suggested.

While Johannes is a former pro and Josh previously competed on Strictly’s Christmas special, Emma, conversely, has never even been in the show’s iconic ballroom before.

That’s not for lack of trying, though.

“Being a contestant has been on my mind for about seven years,” she revealed. “Every year, I go, ‘I really want to do it’. And it’s never worked out.”

Emma continued: “A few years ago, I actually went and had a ‘dance day’, where you kind of go and feel it and see if you want to give it a go. Is that what they call it? A ‘dance trial’. You can do a ‘dance trial’.”

So, “about three of four years ago” she went along to one of these trials with the BBC.

“And I walked into the room and [Johannes] was my partner!” she revealed.

While Josh interjected to tease the pair about why their dancing relationship never made it to our screens, Emma insisted: “It just didn’t work out diary-wise.

“I was absolutely gutted, because I always said if ever I danced, I’d really want it to be with Jojo. But now, I get to dance with him in a different way.”

“There’ll definitely be more dancing in this launch show than there ever was in Strictly Come Dancing,” Johannes teased, with Josh noting: “Emma’s terrified. Why are you terrified?”

“Because we have to dance,” she lamented. “Me and Josh have got to go and dance. We’ve got to go and learn it next week, haven’t we? Oh god.”

“I’m looking forward to that!” Johannes beamed, before clarifying: “That will be the opening of the whole show, where it features the cast of 2026. That means the judges, the contestants, the pros and definitely the three of us.”

Emma also pointed out that the number was “not a whole dance with just me and Josh”, but they’d instead be a “tiny part” of a routine involving “everybody that’s taking part”.

“Three counts of eight,” Josh added. “24. Huge.”

“Strictly is never the same, is it? I feel like every year, we have twists and turns and surprises,” Johannes claimed to HuffPost UK.

“And I think this year [thats’ the case] more than ever. And, it does become monotonous when we just do the same thing, year in and year out.”

Emma noted that while “the heart of Strictly will always be the same”, a show “can’t be on air for over two decades and never change anything or anyone”.

“It’s not that we’re not changing it, because you don’t want to change it! But little tweaks every now and then, it’s good,” she added, while Josh teased that there could be “more surprises” in store like last year’s well-received “Instant Dance” challenge (which will be back in 2026).

Josh admitted that the “most nervous” he’s felt at the prospect at taking over as Strictly’s new host was in “the month where we weren’t doing anything”.

“The moment we’re in a room together, it just feels like, this is going to be really fun,” he told his co-hosts.

Emma said: “We’ve got a lot of time together in the coming weeks. That’s something that was really important to all of us, that we spend lots of time together and we got to know each other really well, just so that whole process feels as smooth as possible.”

“My mama, she probably told the whole township,” Johannes shared. “This is the biggest gig, of course, that I’ve ever landed in my life. So you can imagine, everybody back home has just been absolutely wonderful.

“People have celebrated on our behalf back home in South Africa, they had a party when I told them that I got this job. Everybody came together, so it’s just lovely to know that they understand the magnitude of this all.”

Josh shared that his eight-year-old daughter Pearl was “so excited” about his “once in a lifetime opportunity”, before noting: “Also, it means I can’t go on tour, which is much better for my family.”

Emma then said: “[My family] were all over the moon. You know, we watch it every week, and my kids have grown up watching it, so they were all [excited].

“One of my kids cried, the other one told me how proud they were of me. And my youngest was slightly gutted because she thought that my news was going to be that I was pregnant. And so, I had to let her down with the fact that I’m not, but I am going to work on Strictly, and she was quite happy that at least there was some form of good news coming.

“My parents have watched it since it began, and they were overjoyed, and Matt [Willis, her husband and Love Is Blind co-host] was just like, ‘I’m so proud of you’. It was lovely!”

Strictly Come Dancing returns to our screens later this month.

Election watchdogs could investigate the £72 million in donations given to Reform UK by two crypto billionaires, HuffPost UK can reveal.

Labour MP Phil Brickell has asked the Electoral Commission to clarify whether Ben Delo and Christopher Harborne’s donations are permissible.

Brickell, who is chair of the all-party parliamentary group on anti-corruption, said: “The British public deserve complete confidence that all political donations are lawful, transparent and come with no strings attached.”

It emerged on Friday night that Delo, who has moved back to the UK from Hong Kong, has given Reform £36m.

The following day, the party announced that Harborne had donated the same amount. It is unclear whether he has returned to the UK from Thailand, although he is understood to have registered to vote in Hampshire.

A law currently going through parliament would cap the amount of money overseas-based donors could give to UK political parties at £100,000.

Under the new rules, anyone wishing to give more than that would have to have been based in the UK for at least 12 months on March 25 this year.

Housing secretary Angela Rayner suggested on Sunday that Reform may have to give at least some of the money back if Delo and Harborne did not comply with the new law.

In a letter to Electoral Commission chief executive Dr Vijay Rangarajan, seen by HuffPost UK, Brickell says “it appears very likely that both donors were still registered overseas on – and for some time after – March 25, 2026”.

He added: “I would therefore be very grateful for swift clarification from the Electoral Commission on whether you see grounds for opening an investigation into the permissibility of the two £36m donations.”

Brickell, the MP for Bolton West, has also asked the Commission whether Reform may be forced to give back at least some of the money.

He said: “The British public deserve complete confidence that all political donations are lawful, transparent and come with no strings attached.

“The unprecedented scale of these donations raises important questions which require urgent clarification from the Electoral Commission.”

The Commission has been contacted for comment.

Meanwhile, Reform leader Nigel Farage has conceded that the donations may not be permissible under the new law.

Speaking to the BBC, he said: “Both these donations are 100% compliant with the law today, of that there is no question whatsoever.”

Asked if Delo and Harborne were based in the UK on March 25 this year, Farage said: “I’m not going to go into their particular details. All I’m going to say is, with the law of the land as it stands, they are both compliant.

“Now, there is talk, and Angela Rayner was talking about this yesterday, there is talk of them retrospectively declaring donations illegally.

“Well, that simply cannot be.”

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Oasis have finally confirmed the worst-kept secret in music – they’re heading off on tour again next year.

Fresh from the release of their concert film Don’t Look Back In Anger, brothers Liam and Noel Gallagher announced on Monday afternoon that they’ll be hitting the road for a new string of shows in 2027.

“START THE CELEBRATIONS!!!!” they said in a joint statement. “After a period of reflection, ‘The Most Damaging Pop Cultural Force In Recent British History’ has declared itself fit for purpose and will once again return to lift the spirits of the people.”

“Come witness the fitness. It shall be a sight to behold,” they added.

The new shows will begin in Glasgow at the end of May 2027, with a run of five shows at Celtic Park.

From there, as was previously rumoured, they’ll set up residency in their hometown of Manchester, for 11 nights at the Etihad Stadium in June.

After that, they’ll be hitting up Munich, Barcelona, Amsterdam, Paris and Rome, before heading to North America for gigs in Boston and Las Vegas.

The tour will then conclude with two nights at Slane Castle in Ireland, before four more shows at Knebworth, marking 30 years since the band’s last record-breaking jaunt there.

Alright, pay attention, because famously, tickets were pretty hard to come by for Oasis’ 2025 shows.

A registration process for the 2027 tour has been set up, which is already open for fans over on the band’s website.

To be in with a chance, you must register before 4pm on Thursday 17 September. If you’re successful, you’ll then be sent a non-transferable code, with tickets then going on sale on either 25, 26 or 27 September, depending on which date you want to go to.

An official press release explains: “The registration process is the only public way to buy tickets for Oasis Live ’27. There will be no general onsale or other public presales outside of this process. This structure has been created to ensure the purchase process is as fair and smooth as possible for Oasis fans.”

Standard ticket will range between £71.50 and £266.60, including fees. For more ticket info, you can visit Oasis’ website here.

Macklemore will no longer be performing as the opening act for Ed Sheeran on his ongoing US tour, after the rapper made headlines with a number of his pro-Palestine comments.

On Monday afternoon, a spokesperson for Ed’s current tour, Messina Touring Group, told Rolling Stone: “As the concert promoter for Ed Sheeran’s U.S. Loop Tour, we have been notified by venues on the upcoming US tour dates that they will not allow a concert to take place with Macklemore on the line-up, which would result in the cancellation of the tour and impact hundreds of thousands of fans.

“After discussions with stakeholders, Macklemore will not be performing on the remaining support dates.”

During his sets earlier on in Ed’s tour, Macklemore declared “free Palestine” from the stage, expressed solidarity with the people of Gaza amid the ongoing conflict in the Middle East and showed images conveying the damage in Gaza on screen.

“A big part of the reason why I wanted to do this tour in the first place is so I could stand up in stadiums like this and say two words that are very near and dear to my heart: ‘free Palestine’,” he said on stage while performing in New Jersey earlier this month. “I said, ‘free Palestine!’.

“I want those words to be loud and clear, so that people all the way in Gaza to the occupied West Bank know that we have not forgotten about them.”

Following this, a petition was set up calling for Macklemore’s removal from the tour by the Israeli American Council.

HuffPost UK has contacted representatives for both Macklemore and Ed Sheeran for comment.

One of Macklemore’s most vocal critics since his on stage comments in support of Palestine have begun making headlines is the singer Pink.

In the days that followed, she reposted an image on Instagram alleging that the Thrift Shop rapper had used the concert to spew “anti-Israel propaganda”, calling for an apology from Macklemore for what he’d said on stage.

She later issued a lengthier statement on social media, part of which read: “I was in the room at the Grammys in 2014 when Macklemore rapped Same Love and thirty-three couples, gay and straight, got married to it, and I cheered, no questions asked.

“Four months later Macklemore put on a hooked nose, a black beard and a bowl cut, performed in it, and called it a ‘random costume’. Every Jew I know knew exactly what it was. The same love, it turned out, had a guest list, and we weren’t on it. But he apologised, and I let it go, because that’s what we do. We let it go.

“Then last weekend he stood in front of a stadium full of music-loving families, with violent images from a war on the screens, dedicated a song to the movement of his choice, and then took the mic to tell all of the Jews in the stadium that it wasn’t about them. You don’t get to decide that for us. That’s what prompted my repost. Not ‘Free Palestine’, and not anyone’s right to say it.

“I have never asked for another artist to be silenced and I’m not asking now. I don’t need anyone fired, and I don’t need a refund. What I need is to be able to say, as a Jewish mum, ‘that scared me, and it scared people I love’, without being told our fear is just propaganda, and without being told I’m somehow cool with genocide because I noticed?”

Irish The leaders of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have pledged to work together to end the United Kingdom.

For the first time ever, the first ministers of all three countries are the leaders of nationalist parties.

SNP leader John Swinney and his Welsh counterpart Rhun ap Iorwerth, the leader of Plaid Cymru, both want independence for their countries.

In Northern Irleland, Sinn Fein’s Michelle O’Neill wants Ireland to be reuinted.

All three of them met in Cardiff on Monday to sign a “memorandum of understanding” setting out their aims.

It said: “For people watching across these islands – for people watching around the world – there could be no clearer sign that Westminster’s time is coming to an end.”

So how likely are they to see their political wishes come true?

Unlike in Wales and Ireland, the question of whether Scotland should leave the United Kingdom has already been put to the people.

In 2014, Scots voted by 55% to 45% to remain part of the UK in a fiercely-contested referendum.

It took place because the then prime minister, David Cameron, agreed to temporarily transfer the power to organise such a referendum from Westminster to the Scottish Parliament.

At the time, the then SNP leader and Scottish first minister, Alex Salmond, described it as a “once in a generation” event.

Since then however, successive SNP leaders have demanded a second referendum, and every time it has been refused by the PM of the day.

Opinion polls continue to show that the people of Scotland are evenly split on whether their country should be independent.

Speaking in cardiff, John Swinney said it was “crystal clear” that there should be a referendum during the current Holyrood term, which ends in 2031.

However, there appears to be little appetite in Scotland for a re-run of the 2014 vote in the near future, meaning the prospect of independence is likely off the table for the next decade at least.

Last May, voters in Wales elected a Plaid Cymru government for the first time in the devolution era, which began in 1999.

Indeed, it was the first time in over a century that Wales had rejected the Labour Party.

Although Plaid Cymru are committed to Welsh independence, the most recent opinion poll showed that just 32% of the country would currently vote to leave the UK, compared to 68% who are happy with the status quo.

However, the same poll, by Survation, showed that independence has majority support among Welsh under-45s.

That suggests that while a referendum on the subject is not on the agenda right now, it could be at some point in the future.

In the meantime, Plaid Cymru is committee to demanding more powers be devolved from Westminster to the Welsh Assembly.

Rhun ap Iorwerth said: “While Wales and Scotland are on different constitutional journeys, we both share a commitment to strong, accountable devolved government, and to a relationship between the governments of these islands built on trust and mutual respect.

“We share a belief that our people should decide their own future, and that the union isn’t working fairly for either nation.”

The question of Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland becoming one unified country for the first time in more than a century was thrown into sharp focus at the weekend by none other than Donald Trump.

Speaking during a visit to Ireland, the US president said he “would love to see” it happen, adding: “It’s going to happen eventually.”

His comments sparked an angry backlash from many of Trump’s supporters, including Reform UK leader Nigel Farage.

However, they were welcomed by supporters of reunification, including Michelle O’Neill.

She said: “I think the comments from the president of the United States very much reflect the fact that the unity debate is very much alive, and people are engaged in it, not just at home, but obviously now internationally as well.

“I think that tells us where we’re at with where the thinking is around: what is the big prize here for our people? And the big prize here is unification.

“It is the end of partition and it is that new beginning in a new Ireland.”

However, just as in Scotland and Wales, there is little prospect of Irish unity any time soon.

Under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement, which ended the Troubles in 1998, a so-called “border poll” can only happen if the Northern Ireland Secretary believes there is majority support for one.

But the most recent opinion poll, in May, showed that support for Northern Ireland remaining in the UK stands at 58% to 42% in favour.

While it is doubtlessly significant that the largest parties in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are all nationalist, it does not necessarily follow that the break up of the United Kingdom is inevitable.

The gathering in Cardiff of Swinney, ap Iorwerth and O’Neill, and their memorandum of understanding, was a good PR stunt, but is unlikely to shift the constitutional debate in any of their countries.

While Scotland’s first minister declaration that Andy Burnham will be the last prime minister of the UK was a neat soundbite, there is a vanishingly small chance of it actually becoming true.

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