How have internet personalities fared historically on Strictly Come Dancing compared with actors and athletes?

1. Actors have historically been the show’s most frequent victors

Contemporary summaries and winner lists show that many of Strictly’s glitterball winners come from acting and mainstream television careers — examples cited in the press include long-running successes such as EastEnders and other soap actors among the champions and memorable finalists ^{[1] [5]}; retrospective winner lists compiled by outlets explicitly catalogue numerous winners drawn from acting and presenting backgrounds ^{[1] [5]}.

2. Athletes turn up regularly and sometimes go deep, but wins are sparse

Athletes are regularly cast and often reach late stages: cricket’s Mark Ramprakash is a named winner from the show’s history, demonstrating that sports stars can and do win, but other sports — rugby in particular — have notable near-misses, with reporting pointing out that despite several rugby players appearing on the programme “none has ever lifted the glitterball trophy” ^{[2] [3]}. Recent seasons continue to include sport stars — the 2024–25 line-ups and coverage emphasize sporting contestants reaching finals or making headlines, such as footballer Karen Carney reaching a final in 2025 ^[6].

3. “Internet personalities” are ambiguously defined in public reporting and underrepresented in winner lists

The supplied sources do not categorise contestants as “internet personalities” in a way that allows a systematic tally; official lists and media round-ups focus on traditional occupational labels (actors, presenters, athletes, singers) and do not present a dedicated count or outcome summary for influencers, creators or YouTubers, so the data are insufficient to claim how influencers fare relative to actors or athletes ^{[4] [1]}.

4. Reality TV alumni and social-media-linked contestants blur the categories

Where the lines are visible, reality-TV figures and those with close social-media followings appear on the show and have mixed outcomes: Love Island winner Dani Dyer was announced as a 2025 contestant but withdrew through injury before competing ^[7], while Love Island alumna Amber Davies was a contender and, by late-2025 coverage, one of the finalists — a trajectory that suggests visibility and existing fan-bases can carry contestants a long way, but the supplied reporting does not equate reality-TV fame directly with the modern “internet personality” label ^{[1] [8]}.

5. Patterns in judges’ scoring, public voting and perceived “underdogs” favour background stories rather than occupational type

Media commentary repeatedly frames success as a mix of judges’ technical appraisal and public voting, with viewers rewarding narratives such as overcoming disability (the first blind winner Chris McCausland) or underdog improvement — factors that cut across professions and weaken any simple formula that “actors win more than athletes” purely because of skill or background ^{[1] [5] [6]}.

6. Conclusion and limits of the available evidence

From the supplied sources it is clear that actors and mainstream TV personalities have historically dominated Strictly’s winner roster and that athletes have had solid showings but fewer wins ^{[1] [2] [3]}; however, the materials do not offer an identifiable, sourced dataset of “internet personalities” and their competition finishes, so a definitive, evidence-backed comparison between influencers and the other two groups cannot be produced from these sources alone ^[4]. To rigorously answer the question would require extracting occupational tags and finish positions from the full contestant list and cross-referencing that with an operational definition of “internet personality” — a task the referenced reporting does not perform ^[4].