Mollie King narrowly missed out on a place in the ‘Strictly Come Dancing’ final after being voted off on Sunday (10 December) night.
The Saturdays singer and her partner AJ Pritchard became the 11th couple to be eliminated after facing Gemma Atkinson and Aljaž Škorjanec in the dance-off.
Both couples found themselves in the bottom two following Saturday’s semi-final, which saw all of the remaining five pairs perform two dances.
Mollie and AJ chose to perform their Waltz to ‘Angel’ by Sarah McLaughlin again for the judges, after it picked up 32 points, compared to the 24 points they scored for their Samba to ‘Whenever, Wherever’ by Shakira.
Gemma and Aljaž did their Tango to ‘My Sharona’ by The Knack, which scored 32/40 on Saturday, compared to their Rumba to ‘Beneath Your Beautiful’ by Labrinth, which they were awarded 30 points for.
After both couples had danced again, judges Craig Revel Horwood, Darcey Bussell, Bruno Tonioli and Shirley Ballas voted unanimously to save Gemma and Aljaž.
Speaking to host Tess Daly after the result was announced, Mollie said: “Firstly congratulations to Gemma and Aljaž because they danced their socks off and totally deserved to be there and congratulations to all the finalists, they’re so incredible and good luck, I can’t wait to watch you all, so go out there and get it!
“I have so many thank yous. Thank you to everyone who has voted us through to the semi-finals, it’s so far beyond what we ever thought that would happen; I’m so so grateful for that.
“Thank you to all the professionals, you have been so much fun and so encouraging.
“Thank you to the judges, you have just been unbelievable and I will forever remember everything that you said and I will take it on board when I’m dancing at home or wherever I’m dancing.
“And to Tess, Claudia and Zoe, you have been amazing, you have been so so just lovely and above all, AJ, you have been just incredible and you have been my hero for the last couple of months so thank you so much. I couldn’t have done any of it without you.”
AJ added: “I want to say thank you so much for being in training and literally spending all the time working so hard and always willing to try everything and performing every single night as if it’s your last.”
Gemma and Aljaž will join Alexandra Burke and Gorka Marquez, Debbie McGee and Giovanni Pernice, and Joe McFadden and Katya Jones in next week’s final, in a bid to be crowned winner of ‘Strictly Come Dancing’ 2017.
The ‘Strictly Come Dancing’ final airs on Saturday 16 December at 6.30pm on BBC One.