If ever there was a year when Strictly bosses would wish to be shy of controversy, it’s this one.
The BBC dance programme, which for the past two years has been mired in scandal, is back on Saturday, but already one of its stars is giving producers a major headache.
Strictly contestant Thomas Skinner – the ‘cheeky chappy’ who catapulted to fame on The Apprentice and is today best known for his friendship with US Vice-President JD Vance – has attracted headlines for what the Beeb believe is all of the wrong reasons.
Last week he stormed out of a BBC press conference for Strictly. And today, the Daily Mail can reveal Thomas, 34, had a three-month-long affair with an aesthetician which began just weeks after he married his wife Sinead in May 2022.
Indeed, the wedding featured in glossy magazine OK, but in fact, Thomas had already formed a friendship with Amy-Lucy O’Rourke before he walked down the aisle.
And today, the 35-year-old reveals both her anger and her heartbreak, claiming Thomas told her he was in love with her and unhappy with Sinead, the mother of his three children – a son, now five, and two-year-old identical twin girls.
In an exclusive interview with the Daily Mail, Amy-Lucy says: ‘Thomas told me I was the love of his life and sold me an absolute dream. He told me he was in a loveless relationship of convenience.
‘We were originally friends but with his sweet-talking and his lies, he made me believe we were in love and that we were perfect for each other. He would stand in the mirror with me and say, “Look, we’ll be Mr and Mrs Skinner.”
Amy-Lucy O’Rourke met Thomas Skinner through friends and their relationship grew romantic when he visited Amy-Lucy at her clinic for a body sculpting treatment designed to remove excess fat in June 2022
‘That is actually traumatising to me – you don’t say that to someone when you’re already happily married. It’s devastating, I fell in love with him, I believed him, but Thomas is nothing but a liar and a cheat.’
After meeting through friends, their relationship grew romantic when Thomas visited Amy-Lucy at her clinic for a body sculpting treatment designed to remove excess fat on June 12, 2022. Thomas said he would post about it on social media.
‘During his sessions, which are two hours long, he really opened up to me. He told me how much he liked me and how much he thought of me and how beautiful I was. He became aroused on the treatment table and I think he was embarrassed.
‘He was smooth, though, and ordered flowers to the front door while he was having his next treatment. That’s when he kissed me for the first time.’
Just a few days later, Amy-Lucy says Thomas told her he loved her. They then went on to enjoy months of dates, late night messages and he would even help her with her chores. She believed she would end up with Thomas.
‘I thought he was a lovely, genuine guy,’ she says. ‘Thomas would stay over at my house a lot. Early on he told me that he’d never felt like this before about anyone and wanted to be with me.
‘He said, “I love you” after just a few days of us kissing. He had the gift of the gab and he showed me a sweet, soft, gentle side to him.
Strictly contestant Thomas Skinner – the ‘cheeky chappy’ who catapulted to fame on The Apprentice and is today best known for his friendship with US Vice-President JD Vance – has attracted headlines for what the Beeb believe is all of the wrong reasons
‘He would cook me dinner and took my car to get it fixed like a boyfriend. He made me believe that everything was perfect and we were meant to be.
‘He told me he wanted to be a power couple. He wanted me with him all the time. He told me he wanted me at all of his business meetings, and he introduced me to many of his mates. We would go out in public and drive each other’s cars.
‘I had no reason to believe he was lying to me about him and Sinead having nothing in common, being like friends, saying how unhappy he was at home. He made out he would rather stay out anywhere, than go home to his life.’
But throughout their relationship, Sinead was at home, naively enjoying life as a newlywed. She met Thomas in a bar in the City of London in 2018 and they got engaged two years later.
They married on May 21, 2022 but just eight days before their wedding, Thomas was messaging Amy-Lucy and eight days after they were once again in touch.
She says Thomas told her that he had to marry Sinead as she was from a ‘travelling family’ and her relations would ‘kill’ him if he didn’t marry her. Amy-Lucy later found out this was a lie.
‘He insisted his relationship with her was a sham and they weren’t really in love. He also said he’d never told Sinead he loved her and had never felt about anyone how he felt about me.
‘It was all very convincing and, to be honest, such strange lies to make up. He told me I made him blush and made him nervous.’
Yesterday, Thomas told his side of the story to The Sun on Sunday, and Amy-Lucy claims he significantly played down the relationship. He told the newspaper it was a ‘two-week fling’ and ‘nothing more than that’ after they met in a pub and she later offered him free treatments, including slimming procedures, in return for publicity.
Skinner had a three-month-long affair with Amy-Lucy, which began just weeks after he married his wife Sinead (pictured) in May 2022
‘It was the one time, it was a mistake. I woke up feeling absolutely terrible about it,’ Thomas said. ‘I felt so guilty, I told my wife. I let her down in that brief moment of madness where I wasn’t thinking, where I didn’t appreciate what I had.’
Reacting to his claims, Amy-Lucy says: ‘He makes me physically sick. His entire interview, he was trying to downplay the entire situation and make out I was some sort of a ten-minute fling.’ Amy-Lucy says Thomas managed to convince Sinead that all of the messages and pictures she was sending to corroborate her story were made on an app.
In the weeks following Thomas and Sinead’s wedding, Amy-Lucy says the wheeler-dealer enjoyed living a double life.
She says: ‘That’s why he was out drinking all of the time. He said he would rather sit in an old man’s pub than go back there. Why else would I say I had fallen for him? He made me feel genuinely sorry for him and made me believe I had changed his life for the better.’
While Thomas was taking her out for lavish dinners and promising her the world, she says she neglected her business. ‘He made me feel like we were in a love bubble, but he demanded all my time. He even made me cancel my hair appointments to be with him.
‘He reassured me that I didn’t need to work full-time, so I was able to spend most of my time with him.
‘Minutes after leaving, he would phone me to tell me how much he missed me and loved me. He would even get me to sit in his garden furniture shop in Lakeside Shopping Centre just because he wanted to see me.
‘He took me to his favourite restaurant Little Italy in Soho. He was very friendly with the owners and introduced me as his girlfriend and was kissing me, cuddling me. We have videos together – we were talking to couples on the next table.
Amy-Lucy with Skinner. She says he managed to convince his wife that all of the messages and pictures she was sending to Sinead to corroborate her story were made on an app
‘He was confessing his undying love for me – we would walk around everywhere and anywhere holding hands and go to cute little country pubs and he would make me a rose out of a napkin.
‘I wasn’t working as much, because he was demanding all of my time. But it felt good. I felt really wanted by him.
‘I opened up to him about my past – my childhood, my previous relationships and we had long deep chats for hours. He said he’d never really been loved before, but I genuinely don’t know what was true and what wasn’t anymore.’
‘In July he told me he had told Sinead the truth and that he wasn’t happy, and that they had ended it amicably. He even told me she cried, but I later found out this conversation had never happened. He said he was going to live with me part of the time and get a place until the dust had settled.
Amy-Lucy says she had no reason to believe Thomas was lying to her. He would ‘love bomb’ her and call her throughout the days, acting like he was besotted with her, she claims. He was also ‘obsessed’ with her body.
‘He repeatedly told me we were going to be together forever. We had opened up to each other and bared our hearts,’ says Amy-Lucy tearfully.
Their romance started to unravel when Thomas went to a friend’s wedding, insisting to Amy-Lucy that she couldn’t go as Sinead was going to be there.
Amy-Lucy says: ‘Thomas said they were both friends of the bride so they were going as friends.
‘I wasn’t happy, but he was texting me the whole time he was there, reassuring me. He promised nothing had happened and that he loved me.’
But his lies were revealed days later on July 11, when he took Amy-Lucy to upmarket restaurant Sushi Samba in central London.
She recalls: ‘We’d had drinks and dinner. Tom had met one of my closest friends and their child – I was introducing him to important people in my life. We met and spent time with other couples and Tom introduced me as his girlfriend.
‘That night I clicked onto Sinead’s Instagram profile because I just had a gut feeling. It was then I saw a picture of them at the wedding he had been reassuring me about.
‘They looked like a happy couple and his wedding ring was on. They had their arms around each other, very clearly they were there together.
‘I felt sick and confronted him. He was so drunk he was struggling to lie and abandoned me in the restaurant. I was absolutely distraught. I messaged Sinead on Instagram as soon as I realised what was really going on. She replied immediately and told me Tom had warned her I would be getting in touch to tell lies about him. So I sent her screenshots as evidence.
‘I was absolutely heartbroken and had to make my own way back to Essex in a cab at 1am.’
The messages Amy-Lucy has kept show Thomas texted her on July 22, saying, ‘I f***** up, I love you. My head has gone.’
The next day at 7.30am, Thomas turned up at Amy-Lucy’s house and banged on her door, telling her to let him in.
He was repeatedly knocking on the door, but she lost her temper and came out and smashed his car windscreen. She says she has Ring doorbell footage of the incident.
She adds: ‘I was so angry he’d come back saying he wanted a cup of tea and a cuddle after such a traumatic incident. I was furious and smashed his windscreen and all he did was laugh and drove away. He rang me moments after to tell me I’d never looked sexier. It was all a joke to him.
‘I was absolutely broken when I realised how stupid I’d been – how I’d believed his lies.’
In the weeks that followed, Amy-Lucy says Thomas managed to sweet-talk his way back into her life, saying he had made a terrible mistake, that he loved her and that he was not in his right mind.
Three years on, Amy-Lucy (pictured with Skinner) says she is ‘still broken deep down’ and fears she can’t trust any man again
They did rekindle their romance, but their reunion was short-lived. Amy-Lucy cut all contact with Thomas for good after tiring of his lies and manipulation.
It came to a head when she accidentally reversed into another car in a gym car park after repeated phone calls from him.
She says: ‘I was so stressed by his constant messages and calls, and the way he was treating me like some toy he could pick up and put down again. I blocked Tom on everything.’
Today, three years on, Amy-Lucy says she is ‘still broken deep down’ and fears she can’t trust any man again.
‘I realise now I had a lucky escape, but at the time it felt like my whole life was falling apart,’ she says. ‘I feel manipulated, stupid and disappointed in myself.
‘I couldn’t eat, sleep or run my business. What he did to me was unhealthy and cruel.’
Amy-Lucy feels for his Strictly pro dancer who will be revealed this Saturday night, adding: ‘I feel sorry for whoever has to spend hours training him for the show, and I wonder what version of him they will meet. I feel sorry for Sinead and myself, because the way he treated us was disgusting.
‘I’m glad to be over him now, but I believe the world needs to know what he is really like. Watching his interview with The Sun just shows me what an amazing actor he is.
‘Our relationship went on over months and has had a lasting effect on me after I saw his true colours. I’m not a homewrecker, I was lied to and manipulated.’
Thomas was approached for comment.
