Brendan Cole

Brendan Cole (born 23 April 1976) is a New Zealand ballroom dancer, specialising in Latin American dancing.

He danced with Camilla Dallerup, a fellow contestant on the BBC's earlier long-running show Come Dancing, as amateurs from 1996, and from 2002 to 2004 as professionals.

They competed for New Zealand: Dallerup is Danish-born.

In 2003 Dallerup and Cole were placed 3rd for Latin American at the UK Closed Championships.

He is most famous for appearing as a professional dancer on the BBC One show, Strictly Come Dancing from 2004 to 2017.

In the winter of 2004 he had his first acting experience featuring in the UK feature film Everything to Dance for alongside Sasha Jackson, Travis Oliver and Sally Reeve.

In the 2004 debut series of Strictly Come Dancing, Cole's celebrity partner was BBC newsreader and presenter Natasha Kaplinsky.

They went on to win the show.

In the second series, he was partnered with Casualty actress Sarah Manners.

However, they became the fifth couple to leave the competition.

During the 2004 Christmas Special Cole again partnered Kaplinsky and they came in second place, dancing a Foxtrot.

In Series 3 Cole was then paired with GMTV presenter and newsreader Fiona Phillips.

They were eliminated during the fourth week, coming ninth.

From 2005 to 2009, he was a judge on the New Zealand version of the show, Dancing with the Stars.

Cole was born in Christchurch, New Zealand.

He has danced since he was six, and moved to the United Kingdom when he was eighteen, where he studied the pasodoble, ballroom and ballet at Donaheys, Clayton, Manchester.

Before becoming a professional dancer Cole was a builder and roof layer, having left school at 17.

Cole has judged New Zealand's version of Strictly Come Dancing, Dancing with the Stars, 2005–2009.

In the years when Craig Revel Horwood was one of the other judges the two men's opinions and scores were frequently markedly different.

Highest and lowest scoring performances per dance

Cole then appeared in the 2005 Christmas Special with Rachel Hunter, dancing a Rumba.

He returned to compete on the fourth series, where he partnered with actress Claire King.

In summer 2006, he joined ITV's Love Island and became the runner-up when the show ended on 28 August 2006.

Also in that year, he appeared as a guest judge on the fourth episode of Britain's Next Top Model, where he worked with the remaining 10 contestants to teach ballroom dancing prior to judging.

In January 2007, Cole appeared on the BBC's duet show Just the Two of Us as a celebrity, with Beverley Knight as his professional partner.

They came second.

Cole represented the United Kingdom at the first Eurovision Dance Contest in September 2007.

His dance partner was Camilla Dallerup.

The couple were highly praised by British judges yet only managed to finish fifteenth out of the sixteen entrants.

In October 2009, Cole appeared on the New Zealand travel show Intrepid Journeys.

During a hunting lesson filmed in Vanuatu he was shown killing and eating a chicken, prompting international news coverage.

In 2010, Cole married Zoe Hobbs, a British model, who gave birth to their first child, daughter Aurelia, on Christmas Day 2012.

In 2010, he was a celebrity guest team captain on What Do Kids Know? along with Rufus Hound, Joe Swash and Sara Cox on Watch.

In March 2018, Zoe gave birth to their son Danté.

The family now live in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire.

Cole appeared in the first 15 series BBC One's Strictly Come Dancing, until announcing in January 2018 that his contract had not been renewed.

In October 2019, he began competing in The X Factor: Celebrity alongside Jeremy Edwards.

In 2019, he participated in , as self-described atheist.

In 2022, he appeared as a contestant on the fourteenth series of Dancing on Ice and was partnered with Vanessa Bauer.

Cole reached the final and placed second.