Strictly’s Kevin Clifton makes shocking confession about his pairing with Stacey Dooley

Former Strictly Come Dancing star Kevin Clifton has made a cheeky confession about his pairing with Stacey Dooley.

The dance professional has revealed that he was so desperate to be paired with Stacey that he called in a favour from one of the show's choreographers.

Kevin, who announced he was leaving the hit BBC show earlier this year, spilled the beans on his podcast The Kevin Clifton Show.

The 37-year-old - who has been dating Stacey since April 2019 - explained that he was desperate to be paired with the broadcaster because he was such a big fan of her documentaries.

To try and make the pairing happen, he called in a favour from choreographer Jason Gilkison - who he worked with on the Burn The Floor tour.

On the podcast episode, Kevin told Stacey that he had heard she’d tried out for Strictly, adding, 'I was a fan of your documentaries and for the last couple of years I’d tweeted you a few times, going "I really liked your documentary", and you were like, "Oh cheers Kev!"

'So yeah, I was like "Stacey Dooley’s wicked. She’ll be really interesting... great just to talk to about her experiences."

'Once I heard you were doing it, I said to Jason, "Remember that time when I had broken shins and it was the difference between Burn The Floor going bust or going to Broadway?"

'You [Jason] were like "I need you to give a big performance tonight" and I was, "Yes I’ll do it. I’ll take lots of ibuprofen and go on stage."'

When Jason later came to work on Strictly, Kevin asked him to try and ‘push’ for Stacey to be partnered with him.

Kevin said, 'Jason was like ''What do you want?'' and I said, ''Well I've heard Stacey Dooley may be doing Strictly. If there's any chance you could push for her to be my partner...''

'It's something I don't normally do.'

Kevin and Stacey went on to win the 2018 series of the show.