AJ Pritchard has formed a special bond with Lauren Steadman.
The ‘Strictly Come Dancing’ pro has revealed he has grown "so close" to his celebrity partner over their ballroom journey together, and hinted that anything could happen "in the future".
He told the Mirror: "I am very protective of Lauren because we have worked so close together.
"There are different things that she will talk about in training that she would never talk about on camera.
"It’s for that reason that we have grown so close together and we will be friends for life and who knows in the future… You never know what is going to happen."
AJ, 24, also revealed how the 25-year-old Paralympic athlete – who was born without the lower part of her right arm – has become more comfortable and confident about her disability as the series has gone on.
He explained: "We were doing a step today and I wanted to hold Lauren’s ‘stumpy arm’. I said, ‘I want you to use it and throw it in the air and bring it down as though your hand would be there’.
"I remember saying the same thing in Week One and she was like, ‘No, I feel so self conscious of my arm’. So for her now to say, ‘I feel more comfortable about my arm’, it is inspiring."
Meanwhile, AJ already has reason to celebrate after he and MP Johnny Mercer won ‘Celebrity Hunted’.
The pair – who both parted company with their show partners, Louis Smith and Kay Burley respectively, earlier in the ‘Stand Up To Cancer’ special series – managed to outwit the team of experts and successfully made to their extraction point at the River Solent in Southampton in the nick of time.
The two stars both jumped into the water in order to get onto the boat that had come to take them off to safety – and narrowly
dodged a hunter who dove from his own vessel but landed in the water.
AJ Pritchard and Lauren Steadman’s special bond
