Jason Gardiner stoked speculation over Wes Nelson and Vanessa Bauer’s relationship after telling them they look “great” together.
The pair danced in lycra as they skated for the win in the Dancing on Ice final, scoring a perfect 40 for the energetic routine to Pump It.
Gardiner said: “You know you’ve smashed it when I can sit back here and perv. The two of you are just so phenomenal together and you look great.
“I’ve got nothing else to say than you deserve to be in the final.”
Host Phillip Schofield also made a cheeky quip about the couple, asking Holly Willoughby: “Would you like to see them pump it?”
She replied: “As long as that’s the name of the song they’re dancing to!”
Schofield said: “Yes. It is.”
Nelson previously shut down any talk of a romance with Bauer after his ex-girlfriend Megan Barton Hanson slammed Dancing on Ice producers for pairing him with “the youngest, hottest girl” on the show.
“People have said, ‘Why don’t you get with Vanessa?’” he told OK! magazine. “I see it in my comments all the time, but for one has anyone ever asked me if I fancy her? No I don’t. Vanessa is not my cup of tea.”
Barton Hanson previously described Bauer’s decision to announce her split from boyfriend Louis Nathaniel just before the first episode as “completely tactical” and criticised Gardiner for calling them a “lovely couple”.
She told OK!: “ The fact that the producers deliberately stirred things up by partnering Wes with the youngest, hottest girl annoyed me.
“I stick by my guns that Vanessa knew what she was doing posting that when she did; it was completely tactical.
“Also the judges making comments like Jason [Gardiner] saying that Wes and Vanessa made a ‘lovely couple’ was frustrating.”
Nelson missed out on becoming the 2019 champion to James Jordan.
