Bruno Tonioli Partner: Who Is Jason Schanne, the Man Behind His Private Love Story?
Here’s a thing that should bother you more than it probably does. Bruno Tonioli has spent decades being professionally, spectacularly, operatically open. He’s the man who leap off judging chairs, delivered scores in operatic Italian, described a competitor’s hip action with enough heat to warm a studio. He’s been openly gay since before it was remotely easy to be so. He wrote a whole autobiography. Rolling Stone called him “the gay-Italian-maniac” in 2009 and he probably kept the clipping. This is not a man built for discretion.
And yet. His partner of over fifteen years is one of the most invisibly private figures attached to anyone of Tonioli’s fame. No social media. No confirmed career. No interviews. Almost no photographs that weren’t taken at events Bruno was attending for professional reasons. The man who yells everything has somehow kept this one thing almost completely to himself.
That gap between what Bruno performs and what Bruno protects is the actual story here.
Quick Bio
| Detail | Information |
| Bruno Tonioli born | November 25, 1955, Ferrara, Italy |
| Age | 70 (as of November 2025) |
| Partner | Jason Schanne |
| Jason’s birth date | August 5, 1986 |
| Age gap | 31 years |
| Jason’s origin | Jackson, Michigan, USA |
| Relationship start | 2010 (per Wikipedia and most verified outlets) |
| Commitment ceremony | 2012 (private; not a legal marriage) |
| Legally married? | No |
| Jason’s profession | Model (confirmed: Marie Claire, Vogue Italia, Sacha London) |
| Children | None |
| Bruno’s net worth | Approx. £7–12 million (estimate) |
The Commitment Ceremony Nobody Really Covered
They had a ceremony in 2012. Two years after getting together — which, honestly, is fast — Bruno and Jason gathered some people together and made it official in the way you can make things official when the state doesn’t offer you the legal version yet. In England, same-sex marriage wasn’t legalized until 2014. So the 2012 ceremony was what it was: meaningful, personal, real, and legally nothing.
Perez Hilton was there. Johnny Weir was there. Evan Lysacek showed up. Figure skaters and gossip bloggers as your witnesses — that’s a very specific 2012 vibe.
Here’s what’s strange though. This commitment ceremony coincided with the fourteenth season of Dancing with the Stars. Bruno was at the height of his American visibility. He could have turned that ceremony into a magazine cover, a press moment, something. He didn’t. Neither of them did. The ceremony happened, a few names got attached to it, and then it largely receded. There’s something deliberately un-Hollywood about the whole approach for a man whose dayjob is 100% Hollywood.
See also “How Many Siblings Does Mark Consuelos Have? Meet the Doctor and Lawyer in His Family“
The Age Gap Nobody Talks About Enough
Bruno was 54 or 55 when he and Jason got together in 2010. Jason was 23 or 24. That’s a 31-year gap. Thirty-one. When Bruno was born, Jason’s parents hadn’t met yet.
This gets mentioned in every article about them in a matter-of-fact “noted” kind of way, and then everyone moves on. I think it’s worth sitting with for a minute. Not because it’s scandalous — it isn’t, two adult men can do what they like — but because when you’re 23, your partner being 54 is a significant life choice. And when you’re 54, and you’ve been alone a lot, and you’ve built this enormous career that’s always been your primary relationship, bringing a 23-year-old from Michigan into your London-Los Angeles orbit is also a significant choice.
What keeps it working? No idea. Neither of them has explained it. And that silence is their right. But the gap is part of the texture of this relationship and it shouldn’t just get a brief paragraph before everyone moves on to something else.
Who Jason Schanne Actually Is
Right, so let me tell you what I found, what’s verified, and where sources disagree.
Jason Schanne was born August 5, 1986, in Jackson, Michigan. He’s American. He’s a model — this is confirmed by his appearances in Vogue Italia, Marie Claire, and Sacha London. Beyond that, it gets murky fast. Some sites describe him as a “costume designer.” Others say “choreographer.” One confidently lists “actor, director, model.” One source names his parents as Shanna Jones and Michael Robbins, though the same source contains other obvious errors, so take that with appropriate seasoning.
He doesn’t have public social media. No Instagram. No Twitter account that anybody’s confirmed as actually his. He was reportedly living in Michigan before the relationship drew him to London.
One site — and I’m noting this because it was at least trying to be accurate — described Jason as having been an ambassador for the charity Love Hope Strength. That’s the only non-modeling professional mention that appears across multiple sources. Everything else is either fabricated or recycled speculation.
Think about that. Fifteen years with one of the most recognizable faces in ballroom television, and what we have is: born Michigan, 1986, model, some magazines, possibly a charity connection. That’s not laziness on the media’s part — it’s the result of a person who has simply declined to be a subject.
What Bruno Built Before Any of This
Before there was Jason. Before Strictly Come Dancing. Before Derek Hough was a household name and before Carrie Ann Inaba was debating scores on Tuesday nights — Bruno Tonioli was doing something genuinely impressive in the music industry that most people completely forget about.
He choreographed for the Rolling Stones. He directed Elton John in the “I’m Still Standing” video in 1983 — the one on the beach in Cannes with the roller skaters, which remains one of the great pop video moments of its decade. He worked with Tina Turner. Freddie Mercury. Duran Duran. Sting. Boy George. Paul McCartney. He was a working creative force in an era when those names defined everything.
The TV judging came much later. Strictly in 2004. DWTS in 2005. For roughly twenty years before that, Bruno was building his reputation behind the camera rather than in front of it. That’s a context worth having.
His parents, Werther and Fulvia, were working class. His father drove a bus and later painted cars. His mother stitched car seat covers. They weren’t arts people, except that his father — and this is the detail I keep coming back to — loved ballroom dancing. Spent weekends doing it with Fulvia, right up until she died. Bruno became globally famous for judging ballroom. His dad never saw it. That registers as something, even if I can’t quite name what.
The Bullying That Shaped Everything
This part of the Bruno story gets mentioned and then skimmed past, but it shouldn’t be.
Growing up in Ferrara — a small, deeply Catholic city in northeastern Italy — in the 1960s and 70s as a gay kid was not an experience of gentle misunderstanding. Bruno described it plainly in an interview with the Mirror: “I really WAS the only gay in the village. I was labelled ‘the queenie guy’ and ‘the queer’, which was the worst thing you could be told in Italy in those days.” He was physically followed out of a nightclub by men wielding a broken bottle. He was pinned against a wall with homophobic slurs being hurled at him.
He never came out to his parents directly. He brought the guys home and his parents presumably figured it out, but the word was never said. “To my mum I was never gay.” That sentence is doing a lot of work.
He left at 18. Paris first, with the La Grande Eugene dance company. Then London, 1975. And eventually — maybe most importantly — reinvention. “Instead of being an object of derision,” he said later, “I was able to become an object of admiration.” That line says more about Bruno Tonioli than any other sentence I found in my research. It explains the theatricality, the exuberance, the absolute refusal to be subtle on a judging panel. When you spend your youth being attacked for existing, performing your joy loudly as an adult becomes something bigger than entertainment.
The Strictly Departure and the Career Pivot Nobody Fully Explains
Bruno left Strictly Come Dancing after 2019. Officially it was pandemic-related travel restrictions — he couldn’t keep flying between London and Los Angeles. And that’s true. COVID made the transatlantic commute genuinely unworkable. But the “mutual decision” framing he used when talking about it — “no animosity, it was mutual” — also suggested that the choice was at least partly his own.
He called it a “miracle” ; he lasted 18 years. Which is funny but also slightly pointed, if you read it right.
Then Britain’s Got Talent in 2023, replacing David Walliams after Walliams’ exit under a cloud. Bruno pressed the Golden Buzzer on his first day before the act had even finished, not knowing the rules — a very Bruno entrance. He was on BGT for three series, 2023 through 2025. Then DWTS scheduling conflicts made it impossible to do both. He announced his BGT exit in September 2025, was replaced by KSI of all people, and returned full-time to DWTS Season 34.
Let’s be honest about what DWTS represents for Bruno. It’s his home. It’s where he’s been since 2005. The twenty years of stability it’s offered him — professionally, financially, geographically splitting between LA and London — that’s what he’s always come back to. BGT was a great two-year adventure and a return to British screens. DWTS is the institution he won’t walk away from.
The Matt Law Moment
In 2019, Bruno was photographed at the Mary Poppins Returns premiere alongside a younger man named Matt Law. Rumours of a romance circulated briefly. Both Bruno and Law denied them. Law was actually a friend or colleague, the story died quickly, and that was that.
I mention it only because it’s the one moment where the wall Bruno has built around his private life developed a brief visible crack — and it turned out there wasn’t anything behind it. The rumours were wrong. Jason remained the partner. The deflection worked.
The Marriage Question That Isn’t Going Away
They had the ceremony in 2012. Same-sex marriage became legal in England in 2014. They’ve had over ten years since then to legally formalize things if they wanted to. They haven’t.
Various sources quote Bruno as saying he “doesn’t believe in marriage” or is “happy with how things are.” I haven’t been able to verify those quotes against a specific interview. What is verifiable is the outcome: they remain committed but legally unmarried. And after 15 years together, that’s clearly a deliberate position rather than an oversight.
This is their business. I note it only because people genuinely search for it, and the answer is simply: no, they haven’t married, and they apparently don’t want to.
Final Words
The most intriguing celebrity partner in this field is Jason Schanne. Most interesting because the total privacy he’s maintained alongside Bruno — a person for whom volume is a professional requirement — represents a kind of genuine personal achievement. Fifteen-plus years without a public profile attached to one of TV’s most recognizable personalities. That’s not an accident.
Least interesting because there’s genuinely very little to work with. He models. He moved from Michigan to London. He appeared at a ceremony with Perez Hilton in 2012. He doesn’t tweet. He might be tall or he might be average height depending on which unverified source you believe.
What I find more compelling, actually, is the shape of Bruno’s whole story — from bullied kid in Ferrara to choreographing for the Rolling Stones to being the most flamboyant man on network television — and how the relationship fits into it. Bruno learned early that the world was not automatically going to accept him. He built a public persona so bright it couldn’t be ignored. And he built a private life so carefully enclosed that even his enormous fame couldn’t breach it.
The person inside that container is Jason Schanne. The part Bruno actually keeps.
FAQs
1. Who is Bruno Tonioli’s partner?
Jason Schanne — an American model from Jackson, Michigan, born August 5, 1986. They’ve been together since 2010 and had a commitment ceremony in 2012.
2. Are Bruno Tonioli and Jason Schanne married?
Not legally. They had a commitment ceremony in 2012 attended by friends including Perez Hilton and Johnny Weir. They have not legally married since, despite same-sex marriage becoming available in England in 2014. By all appearances, that’s a deliberate choice.
3. How much younger is Jason than Bruno?
Thirty-one years. Bruno was born in November 1955; Jason in August 1986. Bruno was 54 or 55 when they got together.
4. What does Jason Schanne do for work?
He’s a model, confirmed by appearances in Marie Claire, Vogue Italia, and Sacha London. He’s also described elsewhere as an actor, director, or costume designer, but none of those descriptions are reliably verified. The modeling credits are the only solid professional information available.
5. Why did Bruno leave Britain’s Got Talent?
Scheduling conflicts with Dancing with the Stars, which films in the US in autumn. He departed after three series in September 2025 and was replaced by KSI for the 2026 series.
6. Bruno appeared on Strictly Come Dancing for how long?
From the first series in 2004 through 2019 — fifteen seasons, though COVID travel restrictions in 2020 prevented full participation and his official departure came in 2021/2022.
7. Does Jason Schanne have social media?
No confirmed public accounts. He appears to be deliberately absent from social media, which is notable for someone in his peer group and his partner’s level of fame.
8. Where do Bruno and Jason live?
They split time between London and Los Angeles, which has been consistent with Bruno’s professional commitments on both continents.
9. Why did Bruno Tonioli leave Italy?
He left at 18 after growing up experiencing significant homophobic bullying in Ferrara, a small Catholic city where, as he described it, he was “the only gay in the village.” He went to Paris first, then London, and built his career from there.
10. Does Bruno Tonioli have children?
No children. He’s said nothing publicly to suggest this will change.
11. What was Bruno’s most memorable career moment before TV?
Choreographing Elton John’s “I’m Still Standing” video in 1983 is probably the most iconic, but his work with the Rolling Stones, Tina Turner, Freddie Mercury, and Duran Duran throughout the ’80s and ’90s represents a genuinely impressive pre-television career that rarely gets the attention it deserves.
Beyond the headlines, discover what’s worth knowing — TheTrendist.
