Strictly the Truth star James Jordan is back to discuss all things week 7 - and what was perhaps the most divisive dance-off decision of the competition so far. Angela and Kai, and Adam and Luba, found themselves in the bottom two on the hit show, with the judges unanimously opting to save Angela and Kai for another week. But was it the right decision? Here’s what James had to say…
Chatting to HELLO! On his show, Strictly the Truth, James broke out the judges’ decision to say goodbye to Adam, explaining: "This was a unanimous decision. Every single judge said they would have saved Angela. Now, did they do that to almost justify the decision? Have they kind of gone, 'Okay, all four of us do it because then we can say that is what it is?' I don't know, because when I watched it, I would have saved Adam." Watch James’ whole show and find out his thoughts on all the dances here…
Speaking about the leaderboard, which saw Ellie and Vito on top with 39 points, he continued: "You had Ellie, Layton, Annabelle and Nigel in the top four… Bobby, bang in the middle. Then they had Krishnan on 29 points, then Angela and Kai on 28, and then joint at the bottom of the leaderboard were Angela and Carlos, and Adam and Luba. For me, they got that totally wrong.
© Guy Levy"Adam, out of those four people was clearly better. Krishnan should have been bottom of the leaderboard. I have no idea how they put him forth from the bottom… Putting Adam at the bottom of the leaderboard with the Rumba, one of the most difficult dances for the men to do, he went out there… as Rumbas go, I really, really enjoyed it as a performance.
"Adam does a really difficult dance and does a great job… I thought Luba did a fantastic job with the choreography and in fact, hid the fact how difficult Rumba can be… I feel Adam was stitched up. That's my personal feeling. And that is kind of the consensus that people are having on Twitter and social media. There's no way he should have been bottom of the leaderboard. So if he was in the correct position, on the leaderboard, would he have ended up in the bottom two? I think probably not."
© Guy LevyDiscussing the dance-off between Kai and Angela, and Adam and Luba, he continued: "Adam was clearly better, okay? Let's take into consideration, that when they did their first one, Angela and Kai were marked one mark higher than Adam and Luba. However, when they did the dance-off, she made a couple of small mistakes, and at the end of the routine, she was wobbling quite a bit. I think everybody saw that.
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)
"No one mentioned it, not one of the judges mentioned it because it's almost like they want to get through. 'Let’s get Angela to Blackpool.'"
James, who initially predicted that Angela might have made it to the final four of the competition, continued: "Let's not take anything away from Angela. I'm a massive fan of them. I've been rooting for them the whole way through, saying that she deserves her place and she does deserve her place essentially, because she's still great and she is 79 and I do take that into consideration. However, this week I felt it was just wrong."
© BBCSpeaking of Angela’s chances of getting through week 8 of the competition to land a place at Blackpool, James said: "Of course it would be lovely, but she still needs to deserve to be there, doesn't she? And I'm not saying she doesn't, but I'm just saying what people at home are thinking. Is she going to do a Jive or a Samba, for example? Let's test her a little bit, you know?"
