Helen Skelton unintentionally caused a spat on the Strictly Come Dancing panel on Saturday night as head judge Shirley Ballas turned on Craig Revel-Horwood for daring to criticise her performance.
After battling a much publicised crisis of confidence in the early weeks of her Strictly journey, TV presenter Helen has come on leaps and bounds alongside always supportive pro partner Gorka Marquez in the BBC ballroom. Highlights of their run on Strictly so far include finishing joint top of the leaderboard for their Charleston in the BBC 100th birthday special and then bettering that will a personal best score for their electric jive a few weeks later.
Helen and Gorka took to the floor in Blackpool in a good run of form and, having not yet fallen into the bottom two, they were hoping to escape the dance-off once again and impress the judges and viewers at home with their Quickstep to Valerie. The audience in the iconic Tower Ballroom were in raptures by the end of the dance, with Tess Daly taking a moment to let Helen and Gorka take it all in.
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Before the judges had even uttered a word, plenty of fans on Twitter were predicting a 40/40 score but, hopes were dashed when Craig opened his mouth to remark: "I thought your frame was a little bit hoedown," prompting boos to ring out round the room.
Annoyed by the comment, Shirley rose out of her seat and leant across colleague Motsi Mabuse to shout: "Not at all! Not at all!" as Craig told her to sit down, before having a dig at her dress by adding: "Put your little lampshade out...that's what her mother said anyway."
After starting off with a negative, Craig went onto praise Helen's footwork and, with him giving a 9 and the other judges all awarding 10s, Helen and Gorka got a new series high score of 39 out of 40.
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