George Clarke breaks silence on new girlfriend as he signs up for Strictly Come Dancing

George Clarke has revealed the reason why he confirmed his romance with lingerie model Yasmin Amelia just hours before he was announced as part of this year’s Strictly Come Dancing line-up.

The 25-year-old YouTuber, who built a loyal following online with his sharp sense of humour, previously kept fans guessing when it came to his relationship status.

Until now, Clarke has often joked about dating mishaps and dodged questions about his love life. But ahead of his glittering BBC ballroom debut, he decided to go public with a girlfriend for the first time.

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He explained his reasoning on the Useless Hotline Podcast, saying he wanted to take control of the story before speculation started. He shared: "That's part of the reason why we wanted to say something. Because the two options were, say something. You have full control over how it comes out.

"Whatever you say is basically how people find out, or it stays private. [It] just sort of takes all the control out of your hands. But then, I [will] just go on stream after that and be like, that's not true, by the way. But, yeah, she's my girlfriend."

Fans first spotted hints of his relationship during a livestream, and quickly figured out that his partner was Yasmin Amelia, also known as Yasmin Bennett, a model signed to J’adore Models with over 30,000 Instagram followers.

Clarke himself boasts more than 686,000 followers and previously appeared on the Netflix reality show Inside. While many of his fans celebrated the news of his new romance, others were taken aback.

One Reddit user wrote: "Caught me off guard because he is a very private person especially about his dating/love life. Even on the pod he has expressed his desire to keep things private and off socials." However, another wrote: "I heard about this on his stream, and I'm genuinely happy for him!"

Clarke has also addressed speculation about the so-called Strictly Curse, which what fans call the phenomenon of many stars who join the show leaving their partners for someone they've met during the competition.

He quickly dismissed the idea that his relationship could be at risk because of his upcoming time on Strictly, and insisted that he went public about his girlfriend because he wanted to be honest with his fans, rather than as a form of damage control.

Clarke also accidentally dropped another interesting piece of information on the podcast, hinting at who he might be partnered with on the show.

He revealed that he had already met professional dancer Lauren Oakley in rehearsals, saying: "I've not met anyone apart from, I believe her name's Lauren, who was the pro that I met. Because when we had an interview for it, so it's like an hour long interview, and then like an hour long dance session."

Oakley, who joined the Strictly pro team in 2022, has previously competed with journalist Krishnan Guru-Murthy and singer JB Gill. If Clarke’s slip-up means what it seems to imply, she might be guiding the YouTube star through his first ballroom steps.

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