Strictly's Kai Widdrington suffers early exit blow after final heartache last year

Strictly Come Dancing fans have been left gutted for popular pro dancer Kai Widdrington after he made an early exit from the new series, less than a year after suffering final heartache when partner AJ Odudu had to pull out due to injury.

And what made Sunday's result even more upsetting for Kai is that he had to battle it out against girlfriend and fellow pro Nadiya Bychkova to stay in the competition.

In his first year on Strictly, Kai, son of famous footballer Tommy Widdrington, lit up the BBC ballroom alongside TV presenter AJ, with the two getting consistently high scores from the judges and earning plenty of fans at home. They were tipped to push eventual winners Giovanni Pernice and Rose Ayling-Ellis all the way, before AJ sustained a painful injury in rehearsals, giving her and Kai no choice but to watch the live final from the sidelines. The couple were then given further bad news, when AJ didn't recover in time to make the Strictly live tour, with 2020 finalist Maisie Smith stepping in to replace her.

READ MORE : Strictly result splits panel as Shirley Ballas disagrees with vote

This year, Kai was paired with Loose Women star Kaye Adams and, although bookies wrote off their chances of doing well from the get-go, the pair looked to have forged a great friendship and had a lot of fun in their performances. Kai and Kaye performed a Charleston on Saturday's second live show, earning a score of 22 from the judges.

Sadly for them, that mark, when combined with public votes wasn't enough to keep them out of the dreaded Dance Off, with them landing in danger alongside Matt Goss and pro partner Nadiya, who Kai has been dating since the start of the year.

Kaye Adams and Kai Widdrington were voted off Strictly (BBC/Strictly)

After both couples performed again, three out four judges opted to keep Matt and Nadiya, with many fans gutted not just for Kaye, but for Kai too. Ex Strictly pro James Jordan was among those left disappointed by the outcome, referring to Kai as 'his favourite Strictly pro' and tweeting: "Nooooooooo!!!! Kai!!! What’s just happened"

Very upset on Kai's behalf, a second posted: "Poor Kai :( he was sabotaged this year," with another commenting: "NOT KAI I LOVE HIM."

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