Strictly's AJ Odudu And John Whaite Both Struck By Dance Disasters Thanks To Tricky Lifts

Strictly Come Dancing favourites AJ Odudu and John Whaite both found themselves slipping down this week’s leaderboard after disaster struck their respective Salsa routines. 

Both stars came unstuck with lifts as they performed to try and impress the judges during Saturday’s live quarter final. 

AJ landed at the bottom of the leaderboard with a score of 30 after she struggled with her final lift, which Craig Revel Horwood labelled “complete dance disaster darling”. 

The TV presenter had performed to Gloria Estefan’s Rhythm Is Gonna Get You with her partner Kai Widdrington.

Anton Du Beke said of the struggle in the final lift: “It went on and on and on, I was like please stop I can’t bear it.”

Mosti Mabuse said: “Dammit, that ending killed me man. I was just like, ‘girl, come on! Stop the music guys!’,” but she added that it was a “powerful” performance overall. 

Shirley Ballas added: “Like any quarter final championships it takes nerves of steel and your ending went wrong. It was on its way to a 10, just unfortunate.”

Meanwhile, John ended up dropping his partner Johannes Radebe after the pro gave him “the wrong hand” to lift him with. 

Johannes ended up falling to the floor at the end of the routine, to which the dancer remarked: “It’s live, anything can happen.”

Craig, who gave the couple a score of seven, said: “I love it when it goes wrong, you had no choice you had to throw him onto the floor.”

Anton joked: “I have lifted partners over the years that I could not wait to put down, it was amazing.”

They ended up scoring an overall total of 32 out of 40 for the dance, and had to settle for third place, behind joint-top scorers Rose Ayling-Ellis and Rhys Stephenson. 

Rose wowed the judges as she performed a “never seen before” move during an American Smooth with partner Giovanni Pernice. 

Rhys also picked up a score of 39 as he and partner Nancy Xu impressed with their Argentine Tango routine.