Craig Revel Horwood didn’t mince his words today following the fall-out to Catherine Tyldesley’s shock exit from Strictly Come Dancing.
The tough-talking judge pointed the finger at viewers for not voting for the former Coronation Street star and keeping her out of the bottom two.
Craig, 54, also backed BBC Sport presenter Mike Bushell as the ‘better dancer on the night’ - but added that if Cath was dancing the rumba she’d have ‘nailed it’.
Speaking to Holly Willoughby and Phillip Schofield on This Morning: “The ones that weren’t so good have gone and now it’s quite even Stevens so it’s up to the audience to start voting and deciding who they don’t want in the bottom two.”
He continued: “You never know what dance on Strictly you’re going to get - and what audience numbers are voting for you.
“If you look at the leaderboard that the judges had, we had Chris [Ramsey] down the bottom, so one would think that the audience would leave it at that, but they didn’t.”
Tearful Cath and her dance partner Johannes Radebe waved goodbye to their Strictly journey on the weekend after failing to impress in the dance-off with Mike and his dance partner Katya Jones.
Viewers were so upset by the decision there were calls to “sack” head judge Shirley Ballas after she was the one to send Catherine home.
But Craig sees it in a different way: “I think with Catherine leaving and what seems to be great controversy - and it’s not. I don’t see it as that at all. My opinion is that Mike was better just on the night.
“If she had have been dancing the rumba against him, she would have nailed it and gone straight through.”
Craig also hit out at the backlash Mike has received since the weekend's drama.
“I think that people who self publish on Twitter need to be not self publishing,” he said. “There are a lot of things said on social media that is absolutely disgusting. You have to be responsible for whatever you say and take the consequence of it.
“That is trolling, it’s terrible, he’s in the competition, in my eyes his tango was better, on the night. I’m not saying he’s the better dancer.”
This Morning airs weekdays from 10.30am on ITV.
