Strictly Come Dancing contestant Viscountess Emma Weymouth has been left “completely devastated” after finding herself at the centre of a voting scandal.
It’s been revealed that a staff member at her stately home of Longleat House in Wiltshire offered to refund colleagues’ phone calls if they voted for her to stay in the BBC competition.
The Telegraph reported that Longleat safari park’s head of animal operations, Darren Beasley, urged employees to keep their phone bills after being “authorised” to pay for their calls.
He wrote in a Facebook message: “Tell your partners, mums, dads, cousins, granny and the dog if he can dial that number for Lady Emma and Aljaz. Phoning this week will be free because Longleat will pay.”
Aljaž Škorjanec is the Slovenian dance professional Lady Emma is partnered with in the series.
After the message became front page news on Saturday, Lady Emma promised viewers she was “unaware” of the message, which has since been deleted.
The BBC stated that the attempt to influence the votes “had no impact on the public vote” as only 109 people had seen the message.
The Longleat estate told The Sun: “It was not our policy or practice to reimburse people for votes. The message was only sent to 109 people.
“No one sought payment from Longleat or any team member, so no one acted on the message and it had no effect on the actual votes.”
Beasley has apologised for the scandal.
The results of Strictly Come Dancing’s Halloween week will be broadcast tonight on BBC One at 7.15pm.
