The BBC has “categorically” denied an accusation that it fixed the result of Strictly Come Dancing after Seann Walsh and his dance partner, Katya Jones, were kept in the competition by the judges’ vote.
The DJ Vick Hope, who was voted off the show on Saturday, complained about producers and the judging panel consulting before giving their verdicts on the Sunday night results show.
Hope told Capital FM that she witnessed the judging panel – guest judge Alfonso Ribeiro, Darcey Bussell, Shirley Ballas and Craig Revel Horwood – having a “very strange” conversation with producers before she was voted off along with her dance partner Graziano Di Prima.
“It was very strange, because after the dance-off the judges have to give their decisions, but there was a bit of a conflab with some producers and then they gave their decisions,” she said. “It was just stunned silence in the studio, it was a really weird atmosphere.”
The BBC responded by reiterating that the judging panel operates independently and that the conversation Hope witnessed was about the logistics of the voting process.
“It is categorically untrue to imply that producers tell the judges how to score or who to save,” read the statement.
“Each judge votes on each dance independently, based on its merits and in their expert opinion alone. The judges use an electronic voting pad to transmit their score or choice of who to save to the production gallery, which is then locked in and cannot be changed.
“Only after this does a producer speak to the judges, advising them on how long they have to speak and reminding them to give a reason for their decisions. The process was exactly the same this weekend.”
Walsh and Jones became embroiled in a tabloid scandal after they were photographed kissing outside a pub in London. They were both in long-term relationships.
Jones offered an apology and said the incident “didn’t reflect on her marriage”, while Walsh released a statement calling the kiss a “one-off drunken mistake”.
Walsh was also accused of “gaslighting” after his ex-girlfriend Rebecca Humphries said that he dismissed her questions about his relationship with Jones and “aggressively, and repeatedly, called me a psycho/nuts/mental”.
Strictly posted season-high viewing figures the week after the scandal broke, with 9.9 million people tuning in to see Walsh and Jones survive the dance-off.
