Nikita Kanda was the second celebrity contestant to be sent home from Strictly Come Dancing in Sunday's results show. While she's yet to take to social media, the radio presenter has received plenty of supportive messages, including from her dance partner Gorka Marquez's fiancée Gemma Atkinson.
Commenting on a joint Instagram post from Strictly and Nikita which showed a clip of the star's emotional exit interview with Tess Daly, Gemma wrote: "You did wonderful Nikita!"
Fans also rushed to the comments to show their support, with one person writing: "Nikita you did amazing! You should be proud! Imagine never dancing like this before & throwing yourself into it? That takes GUTS!" while another added: "So sad to see Nikita go so early - watching a complete non-dancer slowly fall in love with dancing is pure joy! She had improved so much and I was looking forward to her journey."
© Guy LevySunday night's results show saw Nikita and her partner Gorka go head to head with Zara McDermott and Graziano Di Prima in the dance-off, with both pairings taking to the floor with their Movie Week routines once more.
After the judges unanimously decided to keep Zara in the competition, Nikita told host Tess: "I don't want to leave yet, I feel like I've let him down. I've had the best time and I love all my Strictly family, I'm going to miss you all. This has been a dream come true, I'm so grateful. I've got to say the biggest thankyou to Gorka, he has been the biggest support and I've had the best time ever."
Gorka expressed how proud he was of Nikita, telling Tess: "I am beyond proud of her, for someone that doesn't have any dance experience or performance experience to come on this show and dance in front of millions of people – for three weeks, I think it's incredible.
© BBC"You should be very proud of yourself, you have never let me down and I am very proud of you. This show is going to teach you so many things about yourself that you can take with you and I take incredible memories. I've never laughed so much in three weeks than I did with you!"
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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)
Saturday night's show was an eventful one, and even saw Eddie Kadi awarded the first '10' of the series by head judge Shirley Ballas for his Couples Choice performance with partner Karen Hauer.
© BBCMeanwhile, Angela Scanlon topped the leaderboard following her sensational Charleston, and Jody Cundy landed the bottom spot with his American Smooth.
Strictly Come Dancing continues on Saturday 14 October at 6:30pm with the results show on Sunday 15 October at 7:15pm on BBC One.
