Nina Wadia has shared her thoughts on her Strictly Come Dancing exit, admitting she was “gutted” at being the first celebrity to leave the competition.
Over the weekend, the former EastEnders actor and her professional partner Neil Jones ended up in the first dance-off of the series, alongside fellow soap star Katie McGlynn and Gorka Marquez.
Although Nina had won praise for her week one Samba, her second routine, the Tango, fared less well with the judges, who ultimately decided to save Katie in Sunday night’s results show.
Speaking to Rylan Clark on Monday’s edition of It Takes Two, Nina revealed she was “gutted, for sure” to have bowed out so early.
“I had so much more to give,” Nina explained. “And I wanted to spend so much more time with [Neil], more than my husband.”
She added: “I mean I loved it, I actually really enjoyed the Tango, I had great fun doing it, so I was really disappointed because it’s technically a very hard dance to do. But yeah, it is what it is.”
Neil said: “She worked really hard at it, and at the beginning of the week it was hard, you started falling in love with the dance.
“And it’s just one of those things it can happen to anyone. It’s easy to just go wrong slightly, that happened. But she still did such a great performance.”
Nina then told the host: “One of the bits of advice that Neil gave me was, no matter what happens, you just carry on, you just enjoy it and so I did.”
After their exit, Nina and Neil also poked fun at their early exit (and claims from some viewers that they were “robbed”) on her TikTok page:
This week’s live show will see the 14 remaining couples performing in Strictly’s annual Movie Week special, showcasing new routines set to songs made famous on the big screen.
It will also hopefully feature the return of Tom Fletcher and Amy Dowden, who were forced to miss last week’s live show after they both tested positive for Covid-19.