BBC Strictly Come Dancing Pete Wick's incredibly different first career before finding fame

Strictly Come Dancing’s Pete Wicks once had a very surprising and highly successful career before TOWIE and reality TV came knocking on his door and he shot to fame

Strictly and TOWIE star Pete Wicks says that "no one believes" him when he tells them what he used to do for a job and how he worked his way up from the bottom.

Strictly Come Dancing fans have been lapping up reality star Pete Wicks performances with his professional partner Jowita Przystal. The pair’s undeniable chemistry has sparked rumours of a romance and head judge Shirley Ballas has even commented on a "smoldering look" during their quickstep to The Jam’s, Town Called Malice. But Shirley also praised 36 year old Pete for his commitment to the BBC talent show and said his technical skills were "improving week on week". Pete is certainly no stranger to hard work despite most only knowing him for reality TV after he joined TOWIE in 2015.

He spoke about his pre-fame career in a filmed TOWIE interview, The Story of Pete Wicks back in 2021 where he shared details of his early life. Revealing that he was "really sporty" in school, he said he used to swim and run nationally as a boy. "I’m not a complete doughnut believe it or not, despite the fact I do reality TV," he said before adding in his typically self-deprecating manner, "I was semi-intelligent - could have done a lot with my life - turns out I didn’t."

That’s not entirely true though because after working as a glass collector in an Essex bar around the age of 13 and then on a building site, Pete ended up in a highly successful career in London, where he moved to. He explained: "When I left school I thought I’d be a millionaire by the time I was 30 - that was a silly dream. I went and worked on a building site for a little bit then I went and did first year AAT (Association of Accounting Technicians) because I was quite good at numbers. Didn’t like that really because, um, well, it was boring."

He continued: "Then a guy that I used to know, his dad worked in the city and had a recruitment firm so I went and started in the city when I was about 17 as a tea boy. By the time I was 22 or so I was a sales director for recruitment companies supplying consultants to the NHS, believe it or not. No one believes that, but that’s what I did."

Pete only quit his job because the makers of TOWIE, which he’d never watched, had been asking him to join for some time. He eventually agreed to do one series of the ITVBe show, mainly because his good friend James Lock, aka Lockie, starred in it and because he "needed a bit of a change".

He explained: "When I first joined I literally agreed to do it three days before I flew to Marbella for my first series and looked at it as just having a little holiday with Lockie and that was god knows how many series ago." Pete went on to become one of the show’s biggest stars and earned himself a reputation as something of a ladies man, dating the likes of Megan McKenna, Chloe Simms and Ella Rae Wise. He announced in early 2023 that he was quitting the series after seven years to focus on other TV projects. He has also appeared in other shows such as Celebs Go Dating, The Real Full Monty and most recently Celebrity SAS Who Dares Wins.

Who do you think will win Strictly this year? Let us know in the comments below.