SHE’S never been afraid to speak her mind on Towie, and now Dani Imbert has finally broken her silence on her fallout with former best friend Ella Rae Wise.
And while Ella, 26, has tried to play down the drama, Dani, 28, tells a very different story – and it looks set to make relations between them worse than ever.
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Sitting down with The Sun to discuss the drama, Dani brutally declared: “Me and Ella are no longer friends, not speaking.”
She continued: “Obviously throughout our time on the show, we’ve been quite close.
“We’ve only ever really had one falling out, and that was about two years ago. I kind of promised myself that we’d never fall out again, it was a shame. We have properly fallen out this time.”
It’s a stark contrast to Ella’s more matter-of-fact take that the pair simply “decided not to be friends anymore”.
When Ella spoke to The Sun recently about the state of their friendship, she told how there had been no single explosive moment behind their falling out, insisting: “I would just say we decided not to be friends anymore.
“I don’t really know why on her behalf, but for me people always scream loyalty, but when the shoe is on the other foot, loyalty probably isn’t that strong towards me.”
Dani sees things rather differently, describing a proper rift rather than a fading out.
But this time round, she’s handling things very differently to how she did during their first big clash.
She explained: “I feel I’ll handle things a little bit different now compared to how I did two years ago, so there’s not really much screaming or shouting and drama between me and Ella.
“She’s done a few things to me, that I don’t, personally, class as being a good friend.
“Rather than having screaming matches, and showdowns…it’s kind of been left. You will see us on the show have some conversations.”
Ella and Dani first became inseparable after Dani joined the show back in 2021, quickly forming a tight trio alongside Junaid Ahmed that dominated cast trips, nights out and red-carpet appearances for the best part of two years.
Cracks first appeared in early 2023 when Dani admitted on camera to lying to Ella about a secret kiss with co-star Roman Hackett, but the real turning point came later that year during a cast trip to Cyprus, when Ella fell ill and says she was left feeling completely frozen out by both Dani and Junaid.
Matters were made worse when Dani and Junaid began socialising with Chloe Brockett – Ella’s long-running nemesis on the show – something Ella viewed as the ultimate betrayal, with the fallout so severe she briefly considered quitting Towie altogether.
The pair did appear to patch things up by March 2024, but it seems that truce has well and truly crumbled, and Dani insists it isn’t down to one single row but rather a slow accumulation of things that left her questioning the friendship altogether.
Asked whether it had been lots of small things building up rather than one big incident, she said: “That’s the thing. I’ve had her back for so many years, stood by her for so many years.
“When everyone said stuff about her, I’ve kind of always brushed it under the carpet, ’cause I can make my decisions for myself.
“And I do just feel as the years have gone on, that’s just not the type of friend I want in my life, she’s done a few things, leading up to Albania that are so questionable – I wouldn’t treat my friends in a certain way, and she was doing them things. So, I’ve decided to leave the friendship there.”
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Dani was keen to stress there’s no bitterness behind the decision, despite how final it sounds, insisting she’s simply outgrown the kind of friendship Ella represents these days.
She said: “There’s some things I don’t want around me, and there’s types of friends that I don’t want around me, and I don’t want in my life anymore, as I’m getting older, and she just kind of is one of them, but there’s no bad blood.
“I still don’t hate her. I still wish her the best. There is no bitterness. It’s just, as I got older, the way she is with her friends isn’t what I want to be around, and it is as simple as that, really.”
The Towie star added: “I really try to be protective of my energy. And I feel the older I’m getting, the smaller my circle is, but I’m happy with that.
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“I don’t want friends around me that I have to question. I’ve just realised that unless people have got the same morals in life as you, it’s not really going to work.
“We were two completely different types of girls. That’s no shade to her, we’re completely different people. I deal with situations very differently, find different things acceptable, and the friendship just wasn’t working for me.”
Away from the drama with Ella, Dani has also opened up on her on-off romance with Towie newcomer Jonnie Gurie, who she first sparked a flirtation with during the cast’s trip to Vietnam last year.
Asked how things have panned out between them, she admitted the connection was never quite as straightforward as fans might have hoped.
She said: “He’s been very on-and-off, he’s not my usual type, he’s not usually what I go for.
“So, I think that was why I was in two minds whether we should continue or not. So, we did spend a lot of the series dating and seeing each other. Which was nice, he’s a lovely boy.”
But despite the spark between them, Dani made clear she and Jonnie simply weren’t on the same page when it came to where they were both at in life, explaining: “I feel we’re at completely different stages of our life.
” I feel he’s still got a lot of life experiences to go through, whereas I very much know who I am, know what I want. The maturity side of things – we were on two different wave lengths.”
It’s the latest chapter in a fairly eventful romantic history for Dani since joining the show.
She first appeared on Towie in 2021 as girlfriend to Liam “Gatsby” Blackwell, with the pair dating for around nine months before splitting, only to later reunite as exes on Celebrity Ex on the Beach.
Her brief fling with Roman Hackett in early 2023 briefly threatened to complicate things further with Ella, given his own history with the friendship group, before Dani moved on to a much longer relationship with Reiss Boyce, which lasted nearly two years from mid-2023.
That split drew plenty of attention after Reiss went on to appear on Married at First Sight UK, later reuniting with Dani once again on Celebrity Ex on the Beach.
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She then had a short-lived romance with Kane Taylor in early 2025, before her flirtation with Jonnie began during filming in Vietnam.
As for her other friendships within the cast, Dani says things have settled considerably since her past dramas with Liv Bentley, with the pair now on solid ground after clearing the air.
She said: “We’re fine now. We cleared the air, because we wasn’t really sure where we stood with each other and seeing each other again, we can’t really knock each other. She was having her friend’s back. I was having my friend’s back.
“Obviously being in two different friendship groups, we were always going to clash because we both love our friends. I can respect her for that. She respects me – we are quite similar so it was quite easy for us to brush it under the carpet.”
She’s also made peace with Joe Blackman and Junaid, even celebrating the couple’s recent engagement in Albania despite years of tension between them.
She said: “I’m fine with Joe and Junaid, we’re not the best of friends, and we never will be the best of friends, but we’re at such a good place now, I will see them – I have conversations with them – that’s a big jump.
“There was a point where I couldn’t even be in the same room as them. I wouldn’t even make eye contact. Whereas now, I celebrated their engagement with them out in Albania. And I’m really happy for them, they’re clearly in love, they’ve come a long way, they’ve proved everyone wrong, so hats off to them.”
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