Former Strictly Come Dancing professional dancer Ola Jordan has defended Pete Wicks still being in the competition saying you’ve got to give the people what they want.
Despite being at the bottom of the leaderboard after making a number of mistakes last weekend and the bookies’ favourite to get the boot, the 38-year-old former The Only Way Is Essex star sailed through to the semi-finals avoiding the dance-off following the public vote.
Montell Douglas and Tasha Ghouri instead went head-to-head with all four judges voting to send home Douglas.
The results led to outrage online with many flooding to social media to vent their frustration.
Jordan - who served as a pro on the BBC dance competition from 2006 until 2015, winning in 2009 with news presenter Chris Hollins - thinks people need to calm down.
Speaking on behalf of Mecca Bingo, she said: “The thing with Pete and Chris [McCausland] is, they're both non-dancers and the public loves them. You can't argue with that. This is what the public loves; this is what Strictly is about. If they are being voted for, they deserve to be there, and they shouldn't be getting a hard time from people because, at the end of the day, this isn't just a proper ballroom competition”
“Maybe the producers need to look at that and realise that's what people want to see. People want to see the non-dancers, especially since Pete, though at the bottom of the leader board, has still improved a lot from day one."
“It's a TV show, at the end of the day. As long as the judges get the leaderboard right, then it doesn't matter what the result is. Sometimes, when the leaderboard isn't right, that's when it's tricky. It's not just the public vote; it's combined with the leaderboard.
“For example, this week, Sarah [Hadland] and Tasha were on the same level on the leaderboard. You had JB [Gill] with 39 points, and Sarah and Tasha both had 38 points. They were on the same line, if Tasha was higher than Sarah that week, which I think she should have been, then maybe she wouldn't have been in the bottom two.”
“Personally, for me, Tasha's dance was better than Sarah's. So, if Tasha was going to be second and Sarah was going to be third on the leaderboard, then maybe Tasha wouldn't have been in the bottom two.”
