Following winning Britain's Got Talent in 2009, Banjo took a break from his schooling to concentrate on his dancing. He said that "from the age of 14, I started to teach myself routines". Ashley went to a private school in Billericay where he was head boy and still holds the high jump sports day record. Banjo has been in a thirteen-year relationship with Francesca Abbott, who is a member of another dance troupe called Out of the Shadows. They announced their engagement on 2 October 2014. Ashley Banjo is an Official Ambassador of the United Dance Organisation. His brother, Jordan Banjo, is also a dancer in Diversity.
Diversity
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.
''Britain's Got Talent''
In 2009, Diversity won the third series of ITV talent show Britain's Got Talent. All the judges heavily praised their performances throughout the competition, with Ashley's choreography being described by Amanda Holden as "genius". In the final referring to their winning performance, judge Simon Cowell said "If I was going to give marks on that, that is the only performance tonight I would give a 10 to." 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. As winners of the competition, Diversity received £100,000 and went on to perform before Queen Elizabeth at the Royal Variety Show on 7 December 2009.
Post ''Britain's Got Talent''
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 He pulled a ligament in his leg during the 2nd run of diverisitoys which made him unable to perform on the last two shows of Diversity's Christmas tour. In 2012 Diversity did their first arena tour called "Digitized – Trapped in the Game". Ashley Banjo choreographed, produced and directed the tour. Diversity sold outthe O2 arena with a standing ovation. In 2013 Ashley choreographed a third tour for Diversity called Limitless. The tour ran from 30 November to 16 December.
Television work
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 Zoë Ball. In 2017, Banjo was a judge on the new ITV series Dance Dance Dance, presented by Alesha Dixon and Will Best. Since January 2018, Banjo has been part of the judging panel on Dancing on Ice, starting with its tenth series in 2018.
