Aliona Vilani has announced she is quitting Strictly Come Dancing just days after winning the show with Jay McGuiness. Sharing the news on Twitter, the professional dancer said she had always planned to leave the show at the end of this series.
"Going into this Strictly Come Dancing Series 13, I decided that no matter what would happen, it will be my last one," Aliona tweeted. "After 7 years on Strictly Come Dancing, as my finale, this has been my best Strictly experience ever by a long way!"
Aliona Vilani has announced that she is quitting Strictly Come Dancing
Aliona joined Strictly in 2008 and became the first professional dancer to win the show twice, having claimed the Glitterball trophy with McFly drummer Harry Judd and now The Wanted singer Jay.
The blonde beauty is now set to enjoy a well-deserved break as she is travelling to Florida to celebrate Christmas with her family and husband Vincent. Sharing a photo of them together at the airport, Aliona tweeted: "Florida bound to see family! #HappyHolidays."
Aliona's surprise announcement came shortly after Jay was forced to address speculation about his close relationship with the Russian beauty.
"When you dance with someone you have to create romance sometimes and people then want to see that almost," Jay told Lorraine Kelly on her chat show.
"But a lot of the time the papers create it and that sort of thing, but I think no matter what I say people will write whatever they want to write."
The boy band singer added: "We did something that so few people do together, I genuinely will treasure it forever.
"Honestly, you spend that many hours together you talk about every single thing, like the most trivial and the most pretentious, literally everything. No matter what happens you get a best friend out of Strictly."
