Strictly Come Dancing star Rhys Stephenson has defended the show’s host Tess Daly over comments she made about him crying on last week’s show.
The CBBC presenter became emotional after he performed a Waltz to Whitney Houston’s You Light Up My Life with professional partner Nancy Xu on Saturday.
As they awaited the judges’ comments, Tess made a series of comments asking if he was “having a little cry”, which some viewers believed were “condescending”.
However, during an appearance on Lorraine on Wednesday, Rhys insisted he had no problem with what Tess had said.
“No one had seen me like that, and I think Tess wanted to really be a comfort to me in that moment,” he told Lorraine Kelly. “And I think some people, they might have read it wrong.
“But I totally knew where Tess was coming from, and I totally appreciated that. I love gentleness, so for me it was no problem.”
Last weekend, Rhys and Nancy avoided being eliminated from the competition after landing in the dance-off alongside Tilly Ramsay and Nikita Kuzmin.
They will now battle for a place in the semi-final as they hope to impress with an Argentine Tango to In The Air Tonight by Phil Collins on Saturday.
Earlier this week, fellow Strictly star Dan Walker brushed off criticism from viewers after managing to last another week without landing in the dance-off.
The BBC Breakfast presenter is by far the lowest-scoring celebrity left in this year’s Strictly, but he and his professional partner Nadiya Bychkova have landed enough support from the public to have avoided being in the bottom two every single week.
He tweeted: “Thank you to everyone who is sending lovely messages and enjoying us having fun on Strictly... and to the few who say… ‘Just leave’, ‘Aren’t you ashamed?’, ‘You’re a disgrace’, ‘It’s a fix’ (which I don’t get) or ‘Who is voting for them?’... IT’S A TV SHOW!”
Strictly Come Dancing continues on Saturday at 6.40pm on BBC One. Lorraine airs weekdays at 9am on ITV.