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Megan Shaw

Strictly's Helen Skelton walks Pride of Britain red carpet alone as Gorka Marquez and Gemma Atkinson 'back door it'

Strictly Come Dancing star Helen Skelton stunned in a cut-out bright green frock which she completed with an array of silver accessories on the red carpet at last night's Pride of Britain Awards.

However, her professional dancing partner Gorka Marquez was nowhere to be seen and this morning his wife-to-be and former Emmerdale star, Gemma Atkinson has revealed why.

The pair, who met on the BBC dance show five years ago and have a three-year-old daughter together, decided to "back door it" after seeing the queue and instead headed straight inside. Radio presenter, Gemma posted a series of stories explaining her and Gorka's absence with her 1.8 million followers.

Read more: Gemma Atkinson shares adorable clip of daughter Mia swooning over Strictly's Will Mellor

She said: "We're in, we didn't do the carpet, we walked down to do it, didn't we?" she said to Gorka. She continued: "But there was a massive queue so we just didn't. People were saying 'go on, just go in, it's fine', so we did."

Strictly's Gorka Marquez and wife-to-be Gemma Atkinson had other ideas (Instagram)

This morning Gemma followed the confession with another post, she said: "Laughing at all the tags from you guys from people having pictures on the carpet (all looking amazing by the way) and me and Gorks shuffling through the back of them looking like we've pinched something.

"It was a really long queue, it was raining and there was food inside so..." she followed it with a laughing face emoji and a shoulder shrugging emoji.

It comes after Gemma revealed at the weekend that Gorka's legs were causing an issue ahead of the prestigious event. Speaking in a video posted to her Instagram story on Saturday morning, Gemma shared how she was having to pick the dancer's suit up for the Pride of Britain awards.

"His trousers no longer fit his quads," she laughed. "His his thighs have got too thick from the training he has been doing so [it's a] girls shopping day." She then laughed as she shared her daughter's horror at watching her get awards ready.

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