Strictly Come Dancing returns to our screens this weekend for its 19th series, and the show will mark a first for a same sex male couple to appear as contestants.

TV chef John Whaite was partnered up with Johannes Radebe ahead of the first live show.

Last series the first same sex female couple appeared on the show with boxer Nicola Adams being partnered up with Katya Jones.

Whaite and Radebe appeared on the Channel 4 lifestyle programme Steph’s Packed Lunch earlier today to discuss this landmark moment.

Radebe was very proud of it, saying he had been “championing” the idea all of his life.

He said: “It’s been lovely, I mean I saw Nicola and Katya do it last year and I was like ‘Yay’.

“So when it does come around I would love to be a part of it and when John said ‘I want to do this’, and proudly so, I was just like ‘This is my guy’.

“It has to be me and him,” he added.

They also discussed the differences for Radebe for dancing with a male partner instead of a female one, with him mentioning that John and himself needed to find a “balance” to dance with each other as “two big blokes”.

“The principles are still there, the basic fundamentals are still the same” he said.

“But me and John have got an interesting thing because we switch between roles and you can’t get that in a female-male partnership.

“We twist and we do things and I think that’s what’s going to be dynamic about this partnership,” he added.

Strictly Come Dancing will continue airing on Saturday 25 September at 7pm on BBC One.