Strictly star Jamie Borthwick's life – co-star 'romance', health battle and famous pals

EastEnders star Jamie Borthwick will be among the star-studded cast to feature on Strictly Come Dancing.

The actor will swap his role as Jay Brown for sequins and a shot at raising the highly-coveted glitterball trophy.

Although the 30-year-old has been on screens since 2006, little is known about his private life away from the long-running BBC soap.

However, having grown up on national television Jamie has often opened up about his upbringing and interests outside of acting.

He was raised in Barking, London as one of three children, to his mum Sharon and dad Simon who ran bars and nightclubs to attend the prestigious Sylvia Young Theatre School.

The school boasts of past alumni including Amy Winehouse, Tom Fletcher, Daniel Kaluuya and Dua Lipa.

Alongside acting, Jamie is also a passionate musician and frequently plays the guitar, with a growing collection of both acoustic and electric.

His former co-star Danielle Harold, once shared a clip of him in the green room playing the guitar while cast members Shona McGarty, Ashley Byam and Zaraah Abrahams sang.

Rumours of Jamie and Danielle having a co-star romance began to grow while she was on I'm A Celebrity, as the pair told each other "love you" on social media.

However, Danielle shut it down, as she later said: "I’m just going to leave that one out there, because it’s soo funny. It makes me laugh so much, I’d hate to squash it!"

While his character encounters daily challenges, Jamie previously lifted the lid on his condition called emetophobia, which is a chronic phobia of being sick.

Speaking on the Lads, Dads and a Couple of Beers podcast, he shared: “It (emetophobia) affected me in so many ways. I didn’t want to go out, I didn’t want to shake people’s hands.

“It became a thing about germs and I got quite OCD about things like that.”

Jamie then learnt to cope with his condition and is now able to manage it the best way he can.

“I can understand it now, I've got a bag of tools I can use to manage it and understand there are going to be times when I'm not going to be in the environment where I want to be all the time.”

The actor also looks forward to returning to the Strictly dancefloor after winning the 2023 Christmas special alongside Nancy Xu with his impressive Quickstep.

Jamie stated: “I had a ball doing the Strictly Christmas special last year, so when I was asked to join for this series it was the easiest yes!

“This is a fresh challenge and it will be so different to be learning a new dance every week and for the public to have their say.

“I’m hoping to be Salsa-ing around Albert Square in no time and I’ll be asking my Walford Strictly alumni for some words of wisdom. See you on the dancefloor.”