Truth behind Ellie and Vito's secret longing looks and kisses after Strictly win

17 December 2023 , 08:59

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Judi James has analysed Vito and Ellie's body language

Coronation Street actress Ellie Leach became the youngest ever winner of Strictly Come Dancing last night after charming the judges and public with her impressive performances and bubbly personality. But what also garnered the young soap star a strong fan base was her flourishing relationship with professional dancer Vito Coppola and the sizzling chemistry throughout the series.

While Ellie and Vito have been dogged by rumours of the Strictly 'curse', the pair never responded to them, shrugging them off and remaining as close as ever. Body language Judi James tells us that there are a number of telling signs that their emotions are actually 'very controlled', with one half of the couple taking their relationship seriously...

There have been many powerful Strictly relationships but few that have led to a win like this one did and the reason for that appears, from their body language, to be down to Ellie.

Ellie’s gushing on-cameras tributes to Vito looked like pure Strictly ‘friends for life’ cheese but with one difference and that is Ellie’s ongoing theme of control. She showed signals of industrial-strength self-control and in the final, when they were in touching distance of the glitter ball, her gestures and her eye behaviour showed she was even controlling Vito in terms of their emotions and their focus.

Ellie and Vito won Strictly on Saturday evening

If these two are going to convert into a romantic relationship, Ellie’s signals were saying nothing but ‘wait’ to Vito. Vito is an adorable walking puddle of strong, compulsive emotional displays and tactile behaviour. He kept planting kisses on Ellie’s face like a man who is besotted and he adored encircling her head with his muscular arms and gazing into her eyes as he rambled on incoherently, lost in his excitement for the competition and his need to heap praise on Ellie as his ‘diamond’.

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Ellie’s focus and self-control won them the Glitterball though. When she spoke about Vito there was a tendency to tear up but we can see her roll her eyes upwards and control her breathing and her vocal tone in her piece to camera. Her praise comes with some powerfully strong body language endorsement. ‘He..has…changed…my…life’ was delivered with emphasis on each word and pauses between them and the message looked serious and authentic rather than besotted. This relationship looks to be taken very seriously by Ellie in all aspects, rather than just any Strictly holiday crush.

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In the finale show it was Vito looking longingly at Ellie and showing signs of wanting to just keep smothering her with kisses and compliments. Ellie though barely shifted her focus from the task in hand, which was winning. While Vito’s eyes were on her face hers were on the camera, the judges and the presenters. Her eye expression remained serious and her smile professional. Even when she did gaze at Vito there was no face-softening ‘look of love’, just a warm smile and the kind of active listening eye-focus that suggested she sees him primarily as a mentor and coach right now.

Her control would have been powerfully important in terms of being the youngest winner of this show, dancing against at least one of the most incredibly talented dancers in the shape of Layton.

Ellie’s body language became crisp, fiery and intense by this final and her signature gesture with Vito was utterly controlling and calming. As he became emotional she began placing one flattened hand on his chest in a ‘stop’ or restraining gesture. By the end she was patting him really hard on the chest and it looked as though this signal to keep their emotions under wraps and to focus only on winning was what pulled them both through to the point where they were raising the glitterball.

There were hugs and there were touches between them last night but inspected in close detail there was not one intensifying gesture of extra squeezes or strokes to suggest any passionate tie-signs or messages of sexual flirting or romance. But this could be Ellie’s competitive focus which meant she pared back on anything that might have distracted them, for now at least.

Judi James