Background and career
Ashley Modurotolu Banjo (born 4 October 1988) is an English dancer, choreographer, and television personality. He is the leader of the street dance troupe Diversity who won the third series of the television talent show Britain's Got Talent in 2009. Banjo has been a judge on television dance competition shows, including Got to Dance (2009–2014), Dance Dance Dance (2017), Dancing on Ice (2018–2025), and Netflix original reality TV show Dance Monsters (2022). In 2016, he was a co-presenter for the Saturday night BBC game show Can't Touch This. Following their victory, Banjo created and choreographed several sell-out UK arena tours for the group, including the Limitless tour, the Born Ready 10th-anniversary tour, and the 2023–2024 Supernova tour.
Banjo was born in Leytonstone, England, and grew up in Essex. His father is Nigerian heavyweight boxer Funso Banjo, and his mother is Danielle, a dance teacher from Ilford. Banjo was educated at the independent St John's School, Billericay, where he was Head Boy and still holds the high jump sports day record.
In 2007, Ashley and his younger brother Jordan formed Swift Moves with nine of their friends, before later changing their name to Diversity. He was given the nickname "Chosen" by his fellow Diversity members. In their first year together, they won the Street Dance Weekend 2007 competition, before deciding to enter Britain's Got Talent.
After receiving "yes" votes from all three judges in their audition, Diversity went on to compete in the first semi-final on 24 May, losing the public vote-decided first place to Susan Boyle but winning the judges' vote against Natalie Okri. In the final six days later, Diversity were announced as the winners, beating Boyle and Julian Smith (who came second and third respectively). As winners of the competition, Diversity received £100,000 (around £9,090 per member) and went on to perform before Queen Elizabeth at the Royal Variety Show on 7 December 2009.
Subsequently, Diversity were nominated in the Dance section of the final South Bank Show awards and won an award at the Pride of Britain Awards In 2013 Ashley choreographed a tour for Diversity called Limitless. The tour ran from 30 November to 16 December. In 2021, Ashley partnered with detergent brand Persil and TV channel Sky Nature to make a series of short films highlighting environmental action. In June 2023, he began playing the Tin Woodman in the West End revival of The Wizard of Oz.
Ashley was a judge on Sky1's dancing talent show Got to Dance for all five series. Diversity appeared as guest performers at least once every series. In total they did nine performances on the show. In 2015, he presented Perspectives: Michael Jackson's Thriller with Ashley Banjo. In 2016, Banjo co-presented Can't Touch This, a Saturday night game show for BBC One, alongside Zoe Ball. In 2017, Banjo was a judge on the new ITV series Dance Dance Dance, presented by Alesha Dixon and Will Best. From January 2018, Banjo was part of the judging panel on Dancing on Ice, starting with its tenth series that year. In August 2020, it was announced that due to Simon Cowell's bike injury and recovery period, Banjo would replace Cowell for the live semi-final and final shows of the 14th series of Britain's Got Talent.
Sources
Net-worth figure: Celebrity Net Worth (October 2026), in USD. Biography and career facts: the person's Wikipedia article and linked reporting. Snapshot date for all StarWorth figures: 28 October 2026.
