The star “crawled to the pavement” after the accident.

James Whaite stands back to back with Johannes Radebe at the Strictly Come Dancing press call in 2021
Strictly Come Dancing legend John Whaite was hit by a speeding car in a horror accident (Image: Getty)

Strictly Come Dancing legend John Whaite was rushed to hospital after being hit by a car. The 2021 finalist on the BBC flagship Saturday night show revealed on Wednesday, January 7, he was run over in a scary ordeal which saw him “splatting onto the road”. The 36-year-old took to his Instagram stories to share the details of the horror incident.

“Last night I got run over (seriously),” he began his post. “I rolled up the bonnet, damaging it and the windscreen, before splatting onto the road and crawling to the pavement, where some angel of a human threw his coat around me and waited with me for an ambulance. The doctors said ‘thank god you’re 16 stone of muscle because it could have been fatal’. Moral of the story: build strong muscle and core strength, and don’t wear black while crossing the road in the dark when an idiot comes speeding without looking…” he penned.

“I’ve been scanned and poked and prodded, and I’m ok,” he reassured fans. Then, proving the accident hadn’t dulled his sense of humour, he ended the post: “Still gay though.”

After winning the Great British Bake Off in 2012, John’s profile rose, and he joined the Strictly in 2021 line-up alongside the likes of Dragons’ Den star Sara Davies and newsreader Dan Walker.

He was famously paired with South African dancer Johannes Radebe, 38, on the show in what was Strictly’s first male same sex pairing.

They made it all the way to the final after topping the leaderboard multiple times throughout the contest. Ultimately, they were runners-up on the show, losing out to former EastEnders star Rose Ayling-Ellis and Giovanni Pernice.

Close up of John Whaite smiling on a red carpet

John Whaite ended up in hospital after he was hit by a speeding car (Image: Getty)

Following his appearance on Strictly, John’s career went from strength to strength, but in 2023, he declared that he would not be appearing on TV again after Steph’s Packed Lunch was axed from Channel 4, and he ultimately lost his job on the show.

At the time, he claimed that the team was blindsided by the news of the axe, with “the rug pulled out from underneath them, which is really, really terrible”.

He then joined OnlyFans and was open about his experience on the platform; however, the decision to join it also cost him some brand deals, including Waitrose, which reportedly pulled their collaboration “without any notice”.

However, in September 2025, he announced he had officially left the adult streaming platform, explaining his departure was motivated by a reminder “of a talent I’d neglected”.