Not a single sequin or pointed toe has yet graced our screens and already people are threatening to boycott the next series of Strictly Come Dancing. The casting of Sherlock star Amanda Abbington on the BBC competition has caused a furore thanks to a tweet that the actor posted about a drag show. “I’m not a nasty person. I’m really not. Anybody who knows me knows I’d give you my last tenner if you needed it,” she has now said in a seven-minute Instagram video, defending herself from accusations of transphobia. In the clip, posted on Sunday, Abbington, 51, perches on her staircase and receives licks to the face from her sausage dog Maple, as she tells her followers: “I’m sorry if my tweet about drag shows made you feel like you can’t watch Strictly. And I think if you got to know me, you’d quite like me.”
When the dance series announced the actor as one of the first contestants of its 2023 season, alongside Angela Rippon and Layton Williams, Abbington’s name started to trend on Twitter and stayed there all weekend. “I won’t be watching a show that has anti-trans garbage on it,” wrote one Twitter user. “She needs to go I’m sorry, I will not watch with her on Strictly,” posted another. This glittery, cuddly family show, a BBC institution for two decades, doesn’t normally face such controversy for its lineups made of ex-footballers, ex-politicians and an obligatory EastEnders cast member. But here we are. The backlash seems to be rooted in a tweet that Abbington shared, in March, about a baby sensory and cabaret show aimed at parents and their infants aged up to two. Abbington had tweeted that the show was “not for babies” and said: “If you think it is, there is something fundamentally wrong with you.” The tweet caused a furore at the time, compounded by the upset over the anti-drag laws sweeping the US, and Abbington quit Twitter over it. But she’s still at war on the platform.
