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Strictly Come Dancing star Carlos Gu opened up about his time on the show and whether he plans to return, following the recent exits of several of his co-stars

Carlos Gu has opened up about his future on Strictly Come Dancing amid a shake-up to the line-up. Since joining the show in 2022, the professional dancer has performed with three celebrity partners; Molly Rainford, Angela Scanlon and Karen Carney, who he lifted the Glitterball trophy with last year.

Reflecting on his transition from the competitive dance industry to television, he claimed it was “a completely different world” to what he’s been used to for the last 20 years.

Before Strictly, Carlos competed professional with Susan Sun, winning multiple competitions as a well-known duo.

Discussing the industry, the 33-year-old described it as “very challenging and hard”, but also “unstable” as he shed light on the realities of being a dancer.

“It doesn’t matter how hard you work or how good you are, you are the one always being judged and being chosen, your results are always unstable. You never know, today might be good but tomorrow might not,” he explained.

“We worked so hard for 20 years and we made our way there and everybody knows us, we come out, everyone knows Carlos and Susan.”

Reflecting on himself joining Strictly and not being given a celebrity partner in his first year, he added: “Then joining Strictly and not being given a partner made me realise I’m going back again to being chosen, because to have a partner or to not have a partner is out of my control, it doesn’t base on how good I am or how hard I am working, it’s not, it’s purely out of your control.

“I never worked in the TV world, it’s a completely different world,” he added.

Asked by Kate Thornton on her White Wine Question Time podcast about his future on the show, Carlos admitted he was yet to know if he will be returning.

Addressing the news of some of his co-stars leaving the show, he said: “I know we’ve heard, we’ve all seen the news but nothing confirmed by the BBC yet, so we’re waiting. I think they’re going to make the final announcement for all the cast.

“But like I said, being in a position not knowing if you’re going to stay or not is scary. We work so hard in our lives, but those things are out of your hands.”

So far, Luba Mushtuk, Karen Hauer, Michelle Tsiakkas, Nadiya Bychkova have been given the boot from the show. Karen was the longest-standing female professional, who was a part of the show for 14 years.

In a statement announcing her exit, she told fans it was “the right time to close this chapter and take on new projects in other areas I’m passionate about”.

This comes after Tess Daly and Claudia Winkleman stepped away from their hosting duties after 11 years together on the main show.

President Trump has cast another mail ballot in Florida as he continues to publicly bash the voting method as a source of fraud and push Congress to curtail the practice.

Palm Beach County voter records show the president voted by mail in a Tuesday special election for state legislative seats and that his ballot has been counted. Early in-person voting in the contest ran through Sunday, when Trump was still at his south Florida estate.

The White House said Tuesday that Trump’s ire is at states using universal mail-in voting, not individual instances of voters needing accommodations to vote by mail. A spokeswoman pushed back specifically at the idea that his voting practice contradicts his push for new federal voting rules.

“As President Trump has said, the SAVE America Act has commonsense exceptions for Americans to use mail-in ballots for illness, disability, military, or travel — but universal mail-in voting should not be allowed because it’s highly susceptible to fraud,” said White House spokeswoman Olivia Wales in a statement.

A report by the Brookings Institution published in 2025 found that cases of mail voting fraud occurred in only 0.000043% of total mail ballots cast, or about four cases out of every 10 million mail votes.

Wales added: “As everyone knows, the President is a resident of Palm Beach and participates in Florida elections, but he obviously primarily lives at the White House in Washington, D.C. This is a non-story.”

Nonetheless, Trump has in the last week called mail-in voting “cheating” and “corrupt as hell.” He is urging Congress to pass the SAVE Act. The sweeping bill would bar universal mail ballots and, as Wales noted, limit the options to a select few voters such as those with disabilities, military commitments or who are traveling on Election Day. The measure faces steep odds in the closely divided Senate even with the president’s pressure.

Trump has fixated on mail ballots since he began falsely claiming that his 2020 presidential election loss to Democrat Joe Biden was the result of fraud. Multiple U.S. courts and Trump’s own attorney general have found no evidence of fraud that affected the outcome, despite the COVID-19 pandemic increasing the share of the electorate that cast mail ballots that year.

“We’re the only country in the world that does it that way. Corrupt as hell,” Trump said last week at the White House when hosting Irish Prime Minister Micheál Martin.

Dozens of countries, including European democracies that are traditional U.S. allies, use some form of mail-in voting.

Trump said last week that the SAVE Act was the “biggest thing” pending in Washington, even as Congress and administration grapple with the Iran war and a partial shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security.

Last August, Trump used a White House meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to blast mail voting.

“We’re going to start with an executive order that’s being written right now by the best lawyers in the country to end mail-in ballots because they’re corrupt,” Trump said. “And it’s time that the Republicans get tough and stop it because the Democrats want it. It’s the only way they can get elected.”

The president, who changed his official personal residence and voter registration from New York to Florida during his first term, does not have a standing vote-by-mail request for all elections, according to the county records. That means he has to request a mail ballot for any individual election.

The ballot today includes Florida state House District 87 and Senate District 14.

Trump offered an endorsement late Monday in the House contest via his Truth Social platform.

“There is a very important Special Election tomorrow, Tuesday, March 24th, for Florida State House District 87 in beautiful Palm Beach County. … TO ALL GREAT PATRIOTS IN FLORIDA STATE HOUSE DISTRICT 87: GET OUT AND VOTE FOR JON MAPLES! Polls are open from 7:00 A.M. to 7:00 P.M.” Trump wrote, without mentioning that he had voted by mail or at all.

The Florida election comes one day after the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a Mississippi case questioning whether states can count mail-in ballots that are postmarked by Election Day but not received until later. Trump has criticized those allowances in 14 states and the District of Columbia.

Barrow writes for the Associated Press.