TV star Michelle Visage has squashed rumours that she and Louis Walsh’s busy schedules were to blame for Ireland’s Got Talent being axed.
Visage, 51, - whose cha-cha with partner Giovanni Pernice on Strictly Come Dancing marked her out as one to watch - also said she is chomping at the bit to line up more gigs in Ireland.
Keen to set the record straight, the mum-of-two told the Irish Mirror yesterday: “I’ve heard rumblings of some people trying to blame Louis and my schedules but that is simply not true - Louis was absolutely happy to work around it and so was I.”
It was an amazing coup for Virgin Media One when they bagged the hugely popular Ru Paul Drag Race judge for Ireland’s Got Talent last year and Michelle went down a storm with fans who loved her fiesty style and chemistry with fellow judges Louis Walsh, Jason Byrne, Denise Van Outen.
Visage said she is horrified that Irish fans would think she dumped them for a better deal from Strictly and insisted she would have worked around both shows - despite Strictly’s notoriously taxing 40-hour-a-week practice schedule.
“I didn’t get the option to workaround - they weren’t planning another series so I don’t want Louis and my schedule to be blamed for that.
“Of course I would have done both - there is room for everything you want to do - it’s just about scheduling. If you are serious about something you make it happen.’
Speaking at the launch the 2020 Junk Kouture competition in Dublin, Visage also denied Louis gave her the heads-up about the show’s fate and he was also caught off-guard with the bombshell news.
“I really didn’t see it coming and I know we were all pretty shocked as the show did so well and it was so big in Ireland. We were all like “what? This makes no sense”. It was a big mistake cancelling the show.
“It’s part of life - I’ve been on shows that have been cancelled before and you rise above and the next job comes but that was such a shame as it was really was such a good show.
“We were all so sad as it did so well and we loved doing it.”
Michelle also rubbished reporters referring to her as a ‘dancer’ in Strictly coverage.
The New Jersey native told how she had a few hits in the early Nineties with an R&B girl trio called Seduction, but the TV judge said “we were no Pussycat Dolls.”
“Calling me a dancer is 100% incorrect. I absolutely do not come form a dance background.
‘You can chronicle every performance we did as Seduction and you can see we were singers who were kind of taught how to step and touch. There was absolutely no real dancing technicality involved.
“I was in a girl band who had some moves - that’s it. Look on Youtube - my moves are not at all compelling. I’m really just a 51-year-old mother learning how to dance.”
