Tyler West has spoken out about a remark Craig Revel Horwood made about him during the latest Strictly Come Dancing live show.
Over the weekend, Tyler and his Strictly professional partner Dianne Buswell became the latest couple to be eliminated from the competition.
The pair performed a Salsa routine together to a medley of disco classics, and while it earned a respectable 35 points out of a possible 40, Craig admitted he thought the radio presenter’s hip action needed some work.
Later in the show, the long-serving judge heaped praise on Will Mellor after the actor’s routine, suggesting he should “go backstage and teach Tyler a thing or two”, which did not go unnoticed by viewers.
Speaking on Monday’s edition of spin-off show It Takes Two, Tyler admitted he wasn’t exactly happy with Craig’s remarks.
“I don’t know how necessary that comment was,” he told Rylan Clark when the host brought up Craig “throwing a little bit of shade” his way.
“But the judges make their comments, and I’m so grateful to be able to dance in front of them and have their comments each week, and work with them on the show. They’re all absolutely amazing in their own right.”
Tyler added that negative comments are “part of” the Strictly experience, saying: “You take it on board and you grow with it and you try and work harder.”
Incidentally, despite his comment, Craig actually gave Tyler the same score as Will during Saturday’s live show.
Earlier in the interview, Tyler admitted to Rylan that he had expected a slightly higher score from the panel for his Salsa, claiming: “I feel like the reaction after the dance with the audience… and the judges were standing, we thought we smashed it!
“And coming away from it and seeing the reaction from everybody at home, it’s just amazing. Everybody had so much positive stuff to say about it, and they were grooving in their living rooms. Putting a smile on people’s faces, that’s what we wanted to do with those dances.”
In Sunday night’s results show, Tyler and Dianne landed in the bottom two for the second consecutive week, with Molly Rainford and Carlos Gu being saved for the third time.
However, it wasn’t the decision wasn’t unanimous, as Anton Du Beke cast his vote in favour of Tyler and Dianne.
Strictly Come Dancing returns on Saturday night on BBC One.