Strictly’s Pete Wicks appears to confirm Maura Higgins romance after they ‘instantly clicked’

Strictly Come Dancing star Pete Wicks has seemingly confirmed his new romance with Love Island’s Maura Higgins.

The reality stars have been spotted kissing in public after it was claimed they’d shared a smooch at the Pride of Britain Awards afterparty last week.

In new pictures, the pair looked pretty loved up, enjoying a kiss after a date in east London.

Maura, 33, had her arms around Pete, 35, as they cuddled, while he was kissing her cheek and ear.

In another snap, he was caught with his hand on her bum as they smooched outside.

They were also snapped giggling together, while Maura had a cigarette outside, braving the cold in a black puffer jacket and white flair trousers.

The couple haven’t yet spoken out about their relationship, though Maura did send rumours swirling with a recent TikTok of a new trend, where she ended up in Pete’s arms after a romantic move.

She’s also admitted she ‘instantly clicked’ with Pete in a new interview, telling Married At First Sight expert Paul C Brunson on his We Need To Talk podcast that they get on ‘very well’.

‘He’s an amazing person,’ she said, but didn’t confirm whether they really were a ‘thing’.

‘We’re friends,’ she insisted. ‘We met very soon after me coming off the show, very soon, and we just instantly clicked.

‘Our humour is very the same, it’s that sick, dark humour, very abusive, we abuse each other, very nasty, hilarious.

‘Like we just get on very, very well.

‘I adore him, he’s amazing.’

She added that she and Pete are always ‘nonstop giggling and laughing’, saying she understands why there may be rumours, but doesn’t care enough about them.

‘I never come out and go, “This is so not true,”‘ she said, going on: ‘My friends know the truth, my family knows the truth, I know the truth, that’s all that matters.’

This comes after rumours circulating that the infamous Strictly curse had struck between Pete and his strictly dance partner Jowita Pryzstal.

The Towie star firmly shut down any rumours, saying he’s now very different to the ‘bad boy’ persona he once had, but his ex Chloe Sims has meanwhile insisted there’s ‘no smoke without fire’.

Chloe, 42, dated Pete from 2018 to 2020, addressed reports of the women ‘linked to him’, saying: ‘Pete is a right bloody charmer, even men go silly for him, straight men.

‘I used to look at him and think, what has this guy got? It’s so bizarre, men love him, women love him, older women, younger women, he’s just got something, this charm about him.

‘I can see why all these women would be linked to him, they probably are, there’s no smoke without fire.

‘I can see why people end up in these relationships on Strictly, they are spending all that time up close and personal, and I can see how these romances happen.’

She continued to MailOnline: ‘He’s a natural born flirt, people instantly fall for him, and I have witnessed it. We would go out to all sorts of events, and I would look and think woah, people literally fall for him instantly.

‘To look at him from afar and if you didn’t know him, he’s not my type in a million years, not even close, but whatever he has got, some magic power, I do not know.

‘But he must have that to even be on Strictly because they publicly said they would never have TOWIE on there so that’s how strong his charm is.’

Pete has previously shut down any romance rumours with Jowita, insisting any romantic-looking moves were purely choreography.

‘It’s been the same narrative for 11 years non-stop,’ he said on his Staying Relevant podcast with Sam Thompson, speaking about the Strictly curse rumours.

‘And yet you wake up on a Sunday morning and it’s stories that haven’t even happened.

‘For example, during the choreography, there’s a story been going around for two weeks saying me and Jowita kissed during the dance… everyone watched it on TV!

‘They called it a “passionate kiss”, it’s the choreography, and we didn’t.’

He also urged fans not to ‘believe everything you read’, blasting the endless rumours about the nature of his and Jowita’s relationship as ‘utter rubbish’.

Pete, who has also previously dated former Towie co-star Megan McKenna, has never spoken out about a relationship with Maura.

Speaking on Olivia Attwood’s So Wrong It’s Right podcast earlier this month, Pete played coy over a possible romance with the Love Island legend, saying they’ve known each other ‘for a very long time’ and ‘get on very well’, but insisted they weren’t dating.

‘We’ve known each other for a very long time and we get on very well and there’s your answer,’ he said.

Metro.co.uk has approached Pete’s rep for comment.