Strictly’s Vito Coppola: I was on a path to developing a full-blown eating disorder
By Hannah Stephenson, Press Association
Strictly Come Dancing’s Vito Coppola believes the pressures he faced during his early dancing career could have led to a “full-blown, long-term eating disorder”.
“Now it scares me to think that I was on a path to developing a full-blown, long-term eating disorder,” he writes in his memoir, Love, Vito, in which he reveals that as a teenager he ate and purged due to the pressure of competition and that when he looked at himself in the mirror he believed he wasn’t slim enough or good enough for the judges to vote for him.
“I would fall, sometimes I was passing out, not feeling well. I felt very disrespectful for my family and for the people who had always believed in me,” he told the Press Association.
The brush with bulimia happened when he was 17 and only lasted a few months, he stresses, until he went home to his family in Italy, where they helped him recover.
“This is the first time I speak about this topic,” Coppola, 33, reveals today. “Many people in my family and friends don’t know this and won’t know until they read the book.
“There are sometimes situations and moments where you don’t realise you are entering a kind of tunnel and you (only) understand when you are in, and it’s too dark around you.
“That was a moment where, like every relationship, I had a bit of up and down with food, but not because I didn’t love food.
“It was just, when you are an athlete and compete at high level, the standards are compared with other dancers around the world.”
Coppola recalls that at times his training and competition schedule became so intense that he was struggling to keep up with his school studies. At this point he was dancing with Russian champion Vera Bondareva, was mainly around Russian trainers and felt that questions were being formed about his commitment to dance.
“I did something that I will never do again in my life. I was starting to question me, myself, my figure and my body. If you are in an environment that makes you think that you are not right, you will start to think that there is something wrong with you, that maybe you are not enough and you have to try to act differently and so I did lose myself for a bit.”
Dance judging, Coppola explains, is to an extent subjective because it is an artistic sport, as you compete in front of panels of judges who form their own opinions.
“So a single comment of, ‘He doesn’t look slim enough’ or ‘He doesn’t have the body structure to become a champion’, in your brain, especially when you are a young athlete, you think ‘Ok, what can I do to become a champion?'”
He recalls that he would eat dinner and then make himself sick in the bathroom.
He lost weight, becoming drained of energy in performances. In one competition he collapsed before the final dance.
What shifted the dial was seeing how worried his parents were, he recalls. Although the disordered eating episode lasted only a few months, recovery took a while.
“It didn’t come straight away. It’s not like you snap your finger. When I decided to reconnect my relationship with food, there was a big contradiction inside of me.
“There was a battle because it was not like I had issues with eating. I did love food. I didn’t want to give up food. But I also had to please that system’s ideal shape of a dancer.”
This whole episode is sadly ironic, because Coppola’s memoir is told through his adoration of food, growing up in Eboli, a small town in southern Italy, where the kitchen was the centre of everything – family, celebration and love.
The pages drip with tales of home-made cascades of spaghetti, deliciously rich tomato sauces, delicate olive oil from the farm, parmigiana, prosciutto, spicy mortadella, sweet custard cannoli, torta al cioccolato and the family’s limoncello liqueur.
It’s peppered with recipes, from Nonna Lina’s minestrone to Carbonara di Gianni, oozing Italian ingredients and love, bringing his memories to life.
“Food has been the first love of our life. I don’t look at food as something you just eat to survive. I live to eat. The reason for living is to enjoy pleasure and food is that love, that best friend.”
Coppola grew up in an environment of food and dance. As well as working on the family farm, his father, Gennaro, runs a dance school in Eboli, and would do Latin and ballroom dancing with his mother, Rosa, a beautician.
Coppola began dancing at the tender age of six under his father’s tutelage and was entering Latin American competitions at seven, progressing to more prestigious European and international championships. Yet food has always been in the foreground.
In 2024, he won Celebrity MasterChef, impressing the judges with the Italian dishes that he loves.
The book came during a period of his life last year when he returned to the family farm in Italy to recharge and reconnect with all he holds dear, the countryside, the beach, the food, and, most importantly, his family.
Today, he is in a better place than he was aged 17. Smiling, amicable, and positive, he has danced all over the world, won awards and medals, and found fame on Strictly, although he doesn’t feel like he’s famous.
Until a few years ago, because he is shy off-camera he thought that TV wasn’t for him, but after some persuasion agreed to appear in the Italian version of Strictly, which led to a spot on the UK show.
How has fame affected him?
“I don’t consider myself famous. I’m not a celebrity. There’s a big difference between being a celebrity and being popular. For me, celebrities are amazing singers and Hollywood actors.
“Through what they do, they are able to influence other people’s lives positively. I’ve always danced, I’ve always been myself, the only difference is I do it now on TV.”
He’s been in the show for four years, and in 2023 won the coveted glitterball with his partner, former Coronation Street actress Ellie Leach.
Coppola remains optimistic about Strictly’s longevity, despite the departures of hosts Claudia Winkleman and Tess Daly and the various scandals which have led to questions about the show’s future.
“Of course, I cannot predict the future but it’s something that happened to me in the perfect moment of my life and I feel like I’m in the right place now in this moment of my life.”
He’s looking forward to the new presenting line-up. He describes professional dancer Johannes Radebe as an “amazing soul”, he met comedian Josh Widdicombe dressed as a penguin on the 2024 Strictly Christmas Special and is excited to meet TV presenter Emma Willis.
In 2021 he broke up with social media manager Valentina Sica, his girlfriend of five years, who he calls “the love of my life” in the book. He’s not sure that chapter is over, although he says he is currently single.
“I am always in touch with Valentina and we have a dog together. There are people that for some reason are just part of your life, even though you are not together any more.
“The bond is still there, the chemistry is still there, but in this moment of our lives we are moving in different directions – but we don’t know.”
For the time being, the focus is on Strictly, and he will also be touring with fellow dancer Dianne Buswell in spring 2027 in their new show, Back In Business.
“Whatever comes, I’m grateful and happy to take it in,” Coppola says, “But I also want to live in the present because sometimes when we think too much in the future, we miss the now.”
