What was all that with Brian commenting on how nice Aleysha looked? It felt like he'd been told to confuse the audience by saying this line. Bruce's comments before they danced also looked like an attempt to squash the rumours and was a marked contrast to Bruce's quip about them last week.

They were dancing the America Smooth so Brian was acting the part of a smooth America. It was a bit of a joke that missed the mark.

I might be on my own here, but I can never understand the need to know or the interest in the celebs/pros private lives .

You're not on your own, I don't why either - but you only have to look at how the pages of the biggest selling newspapers and magazines are stuffed with celebrity related crap...er, sorry, I mean "stories"... to see that there is obviously a huge market for that kind of stuff. I suppose a lot of people must have nothing better to fill their time with.

Maybe someone had a word with Bruce as neither of them looked very impressed with his comments last week.

No, they're in the papers again this morning

They can't play it down.
Pro dancers are good at dancing and dedicated to that so they don't have interesting stories (maybe Kristina but that's not very edifying).
And Ali is a young actress.

Without a showmance they do not have a story.