STRICTLY recruit Dani Dyer has revealed she was thrilled to kiss her school crush at a party aged 12 — then got bullied over it.
Dani , 29, who is now married to West Ham star Jarrod Bowen , 28, revealed she snogged the lad at a house party in Essex .
In her 2019 book, What Would Dani Do?, the Love Island star recalled: “I was chuffed about it at the time, but looking back it was a pretty s**t kiss.”
Dani, daughter of actor Danny, 48, added: “Turns out, once I’d left, he kissed one of the other girls from school.
“The next day, everyone turned against me because I’d kissed him. I began getting these abusive messages on Facebook calling me a ‘s**g’.
“And because we all had a BlackBerry, I was also getting BBM [BlackBerry Messenger] messages saying stuff like, ‘What goes around comes around’.”
Earlier in the week, Strictly was embroiled in ‘fix’ row after Dani claimed she was a ‘qualified dancer’.
Dani was the second celebrity contestant confirmed for Strictly Come Dancing 2025, with the announcement being made on The One Show last week.
Dani shot to fame when she won Love Island in 2018 – with her new reality stint very different to the dating show.
But now it has been revealed that in an unearthed passage from her autobiography, Dani boasted about being a “qualified dancer”.
She said in her 2019 book that she would put “qualified dancer” under the list of qualifications on her CV.
Writing in her book, which came out six years ago, Dani wrote about how she went to theatre school at weekends from the age of 2 to 14.
“It was called O’Farrell’s Stage School and I was a really good little dancer,” she said.
Dani added: “I’m not a bad singer but it was the dance stuff I loved more – jazz, tap, ballet, modern. I’d get home and prance around the house.”
