Strictly Come Dancing favourite Vito Coppola has spoken publicly for the first time about one of the most difficult periods of his life, revealing that cruel comments about his body during his competitive dancing years contributed to him developing bulimia.

The 33-year-old dancer, who lifted the Glitterball trophy with Ellie Leach in 2023, said the eating disorder began in his late teens as he struggled with the pressure to achieve what he felt judges considered the ideal dancer’s physique.

Now, as he prepares to publish his food memoir Love, Vito, Coppola has explained how the problem affected his relationship with food, worried his close-knit family and eventually contributed to a frightening collapse during a competition in Canada.

Vito Coppola Opens Up About His Battle With Bulimia

Food is now a huge part of Coppola’s public personality. He cooks for his Strictly colleagues, famously loves tiramisu and has even swapped chocolates with Claudia Winkleman backstage.

But his relationship with food was once very different.

“I want to be open about that dark period in my life and what I’ve been through,” Coppola said.

He described bulimia — involving cycles of bingeing and purging — as an extremely serious condition that can become potentially life-threatening once the behaviour becomes ingrained.

Coppola traced his struggles back to the intense environment of competitive dancing, where he felt constantly surrounded by pressure to become slimmer, stronger, quicker or otherwise better than his rivals.

“In the competition world there is always someone better, stronger, faster, slimmer or quicker than you, so you push yourself,” he explained.

The dancer said he felt that judging panels had an idealised view of what a dancer’s body should look like. Being taller than many competitors and having broader shoulders made him feel different, while remarks about his legs and body further affected his confidence.

Judges, he recalled, told him his “bum was too big and rounded” and his legs were “too chunky.”

“It can be toxic,” he said.

‘I Didn’t Have Much Love for Myself’

The pressure began affecting how Coppola ate.

He still wanted the enjoyment that came with food, but said he would eat and then make himself sick afterward.

“I did it for a few months but felt very ashamed,” he said. “It was a betrayal of my values — I was wasting food.”

Looking back, he described feeling “not clean” and said he had little love for himself during that period.

The situation was particularly painful given his upbringing in Eboli, Italy, where food and family were closely connected.

Coppola said his relatives knew something was wrong but initially did not understand what was happening.

“I felt guilty because my family were so worried about me but they didn’t know what was really going on,” he said. “They didn’t know I had a problem.”

His mother, however, began noticing signs.

Coppola described her as his best friend and said she seemed to possess a “sixth sense” about what he was experiencing. She would send him parcels of food, only to discover during visits that they remained untouched.

That was particularly concerning because of the enormous amount of energy required for competitive dancing.

Competitive Dancing Took Its Toll

Coppola said the competitive environment created a feeling that no achievement was ever quite enough.

“My background is healthy and in my world we know the value of food but I started to feel judged,” he said.

He also believes the subjective nature of dancing intensified that pressure.

Unlike a sport determined purely by measurable results, Coppola described dance as an art form in which victory and defeat can depend heavily on judges’ personal preferences.

His experiences with other competitors were also difficult.

Coppola recalled crying when taller male dancers pushed or shoved him, behavior that conflicted with the values he had been taught growing up.

After sacrificing so much to pursue dancing, he began to feel as though everything he had worked toward was “disappearing through my fingers, like water.”

A Collapse in Canada Became a Frightening Moment

The seriousness of the situation became impossible to ignore when Coppola travelled to Toronto in his early twenties to compete at the World Championships.

During a demanding jive, he collapsed.

“I fainted during the jive because I had no energy,” he recalled.

The experience helped reshape how he viewed strength and the pressure to keep pushing regardless of the consequences.

“You push yourself but being strong means stepping away from a situation that is toxic and is damaging you,” Coppola said.

He said he has never returned to those dangerous eating behaviours.

Looking back, however, the possibility of where they might have led still frightens him.

“It scares me to think I was on a path to developing a full-blown, long-term eating disorder,” he admitted.

Today, his approach is markedly different. Coppola said anyone who has danced alongside him knows he now places considerable importance on eating regularly and getting enough rest.

Returning to Strictly After Major Cast Changes

Coppola is set to return to Strictly Come Dancing later this year following significant changes to the professional line-up.

Among those departing are two dancers he considers close friends, Karen Hauer and Michelle Tsiakkas.

Despite suggestions of intense competition among the professionals, Coppola insists the atmosphere backstage is supportive.

“What you see is 100 per cent what it’s like behind the scenes — we all help and support each other, we’re all in it together,” he said.

He cannot yet reveal which celebrity he will dance with in the new series, and Coppola insists the professionals themselves do not know their partners beforehand.

Meeting the celebrities at the end of summer is one of his favourite moments.

“It’s like the first day of primary school and I go round like a puppy hugging everyone,” he said. “Some people break the ice, but I melt it.”

Adapting His Teaching for Ellie Goldstein

Coppola joined Strictly in 2022 and was initially partnered with Fleur East.

A year later, he and Coronation Street actress Ellie Leach won the competition, later celebrating their victory with matching aubergine tattoos.

Two years later, he partnered Ellie Goldstein, who has Down’s syndrome. The pairing required Coppola to adapt his usual teaching techniques to suit her needs.

“I believe everyone can dance with the right teacher to guide you — there are no bad students, only bad teachers,” he said.

Rather than relying solely on conventional step-by-step directions, Coppola placed pictures of former hosts Claudia Winkleman and Tess Daly, along with animals, colours and food, around the rehearsal studio. He could then direct Goldstein toward the images while teaching the routines.

As for a future celebrity partner, Coppola already has a dream name in mind: Jessica Alba.

Vito Reacts to Strictly’s New Presenters

Coppola admitted he was astonished when Winkleman and Daly announced their departures from Strictly.

“We were all shocked when we heard they were leaving,” he said. “I never thought it would happen — we all love them.”

He joked that he would particularly miss Winkleman secretly passing him chocolate backstage.

The dancer nevertheless expressed enthusiasm about the programme’s new hosting team of former Strictly professional Johannes Radebe, Emma Willis and comedian Josh Widdicombe.

Coppola described Radebe as “the most amazing soul” and said he is excited to meet Willis, promising to cook her tiramisu. Widdicombe, meanwhile, already makes him laugh.

“Change is not a bad thing,” Coppola said.

The Strictly Pros Have Their Own Version of The Traitors

Life behind the scenes also includes some unusual ways of passing the time.

Coppola revealed that the professional dancers play their own shortened version of The Traitors between rehearsals.

He admits he is not particularly successful at the game because he finds it difficult to lie and therefore can only play as a Faithful.

Carlos Gu takes on the Claudia Winkleman role, complete with a wig.

How MasterChef Reconnected Vito With Family and Food

Coppola’s passion for cooking was showcased when he won MasterChef in 2024 using traditional recipes inspired by his grandparents.

For someone whose relationship with food had once become so troubled, cooking now carries a much deeper meaning.

“Food has never been just food,” he said. “Food is life. More than that, food is the love of my life.”

Despite his culinary skills, Coppola admitted MasterChef was considerably harder than he expected.

He relied heavily on his grandfather’s recipes throughout the competition and eventually gave him the trophy because he felt his grandfather had guided him through the experience.

One challenge was especially intimidating: pizza.

Coppola joked that surviving that round felt almost as satisfying as winning the entire competition because he was terrified of getting such an important Italian dish wrong.

Finding a Home in Britain

Despite becoming one of Strictly’s most popular professional dancers, Coppola initially struggled to adjust to Britain after joining the programme in summer 2022.

He had previously competed professionally on the Italian version of Strictly and had only visited Britain once before — travelling to Blackpool to dance when he was 15.

Joining the BBC programme was an immediate “yes,” although he had reservations about the British weather and joked about what he regarded as the country’s “crimes against food.”

Being served chicken pasta in London horrified him, while another culinary encounter ended a potential romance before it could get very far.

When a woman offered him ham and pineapple pizza, Coppola said he pretended to have a stomach ache and left.

“To the girl: If you’re reading this, you asked me to choose between you and my life and I chose,” he joked.

Over time, however, Britain began to feel increasingly like home.

Finding Italian restaurants helped him reconnect with his roots, while attending Mass in Italian every week has helped keep him grounded.

“I never felt I could settle anywhere else,” Coppola said, “but I do feel very settled here now.”

His memoir Love, Vito is published on Thursday.