Shirley Ballas has denied the 'sexism' accusations levelled at her by angry Strictly Come Dancing viewers, as well as opening up on the 'unfathomable' abuse she received online at the weekend.
Head judge on the long-running BBC show for five years, after replacing Len Goodman in the hot, Shirley is a former dancing world champion, giving her the ideal qualifications to be a Strictly panellist. However, her critiques and scores have proved to be very divisive, with viewers very vocal on their disapproval.
So far this series, Shirley has been accused of having 'favouritism' towards male stars like Tyler West, who she awarded a 10 to last weekend and Will Mellor and being 'sexist' towards female stars like Ellie Taylor and Fleur East, with Shirley saying she'd have kept Richie Anderson in over Fleur after the dance-off, the exact opposite to how her three colleagues voted. Shirley's decision added fuel to the fire online and, when she appeared as a guest on Wednesday's Loose Women, she revealed that the language in some of the messages she received was so explicit, she couldn't re-post them.
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Shirley, who admits she reads everything sent to her, said she found it 'unfathomable' that people would send her such abuse, saying it saddened her so much because being on Strictly was 'like her Disneyland,' and she gets excited about every single live show.
However, as upset as she is by the messages, Shirley is defiant in her scores and comments and adamant she hasn't been sexist in the slightest. Chatting to Loose Women host Christine Lampard, she said: "I appreciate the audience who've been watching it for 20 years but sometimes, what I kind of want to get across is, when you watch a TV screen, you only see half of what I see."
Elaborating, she added: "I sit there and I can see all the feet and see everything that's going on; the flexibility, what's a heel, what's a toe, what should close; I see it all."
While she would have kept Richie in Strictly, Shirley was full of praise for Fleur as Loose Women star Jane Moore argued Shirley couldn't be sexist as she opted to keep Kaye Adams in over Matt Goss a week earlier.
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