Strictly fans were shocked to see the fan-favourite couple Bobby Brazier and Dianne Buswell in the bottom two - and therefore in the dreaded dance-off - during the show’s Blackpool special. While the couple were saved, with Angela Rippon and Kai Widdrington going home, former Strictly pro James Jordan has shed some light on why they might have landed in the bottom two in the first place…
Chatting on his HELLO! video series, Strictly the Truth, James shared his thoughts on the process that led to Dianne and Bobby receiving the least votes from viewers, explaining: "I was so shocked… because from what I've seen, he's the people's favourite. So how has he ended up in the bottom two with a good performance? I think part of the reason was he was slightly over-marked. I think the other reason was it was Nigel [Harman] making his mistakes and clearly looking so devastated.
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"People have picked up the phone and voted for him because he was second from the bottom. Then you've got Angela and Carlos. They've had kind of a bit of an up-and-down series, haven't they? They had an amazing performance for them. So people have said, 'I loved that,' picked up the phone and voted for them.
© BBC"And then you have Annabel and Johannes, who did a truly beautiful performance… They did a great performance and people have picked up the phone and voted for them - and people have forgotten about little Bobby.
"If they'd been really harsh on [Bobby], I think people would have picked up the phone, but they weren't. So I just think he's just had an unfortunate week. And I do think now that he's been in the bottom two, he won't be there next week unless he has a disaster. Because people will be like, 'I love him, I'm voting for him this week, no matter how he dances.'"
© BBCSpeaking about his belief that Bobby and Dianne were overmarked for their Jive to Jitter Bug, he continued: "I would have given them an eight. They got eight, nine, nine, nine. You could say, 'That’s only one more point,' but for me, it was never a nine.
Every Strictly Come Dancing winner so far
- 2004: Natisha Kaplinsky (partner Brendan Cole)
- 2004: Jill Halfpenny (partner Darren Bennett)
- 2005: Darren Gough (partner Lilia Kopylova)
- 2006: Mark Ramprakash (partner Karen Hardy)
- 2007: Alesha Dixon (partner Matthew Cutler)
- 2008: Tom Chambers (partner Camilla Dallerup)
- 2009: Chris Hollins (partner Ola Jordan)
- 2010: Kara Tointon (partner Artem Chigvintsev)
- 2011: Harry Judd (partner Aliona Vilani)
- 2012: Louis Smith (partner Flavia Cacace)
- 2013: Abbey Clancy (partner Aljaž Škorjanec)
- 2014: Caroline Flack (partner Pasha Kovalev)
- 2015: Jay McGuiness (partner Aliona Vilani)
- 2016: Ore Oduba (partner Joanne Clifton)
- 2017: Joe McFadden (partner Katya Jones)
- 2018: Stacey Dooley (partner Kevin Clifton)
- 2019: Kelvin Fletcher (partner Oti Mabuse)
- 2020: Bill Bailey (partner Oti Mabuse)
- 2021: Rose Ayling-Ellis (partner Giovanni Pernice)
- 2022: Hamza Yassin (partner Jowita Przystał)
- 2023: Ellie Leach (partner Vito Coppola)
"That’s the thing, it was never a nine. It was a strong eight. I expected his Jive to be much worse… I think he did a fantastic job. And Dianne actually made the routine quite difficult. I feel as the weeks go on, he's actually one of the people that I really see progressing as a dancer… and that for me is what Strictly is about. So I have to take my hat to them and say they were brilliant.
© BBC"However, the judges’ scores put this false pretence in the public's head that they were going to be safe because all the comments were amazing. The scores were really good. He was quite high up the leaderboard and you kind of then go, 'Ah, he's safe.' And I did say that I felt this could be a problem for him. And it was, he ended up in the bottom two." What did you leave? Leave your comments on the Strictly the Truth video!
