Strictly’s Will Mellor ‘a bit annoyed’ by comments…

Strictly’s Will Mellor ‘a bit annoyed’ by comments after dancing with flu

Will Mellor said he was "a bit annoyed” with the judges' comments after he danced while ill with the flu on Strictly Come Dancing last weekend.

Despite his illness, the Coronation Street star didn't get eliminated from the BBC dance competition. But Will, who was asleep in his dressing room before he went on stage, scored just 23 points for his rumba to The Joker And The Queen by Ed Sheeran featuring Taylor Swift.

“I’d only trained for about five hours that week because I’d been in bed with the full-on flu virus. I was in a bad way. The judges knew, but they just decided not to mention it or take it into consideration,” Mellor said.

“I was a bit annoyed by it, to be honest, because I was struggling, and when you’re that way you feel a bit sorry for yourself, and when I got the scores I was a bit, ‘After all that…?!’. I got a four from Craig [Revel Horwood], but that’s just the way it is.

"They have to judge it as they see it, and that’s up to them. Maybe I shouldn’t have [danced], because the judges slagged me off – I should’ve just left it!”

But the 46-year-old, who is partnered with professional dancer Nancy Xu, is keen not to say anything too negative about the judges. “It’s hard taking criticism when you’re not feeling great. I don’t want it to come across that I’m complaining about the judges’ scoring – that’s part of the competition.

Will Mellor has been paired with pro dancer Nancy Xu for this year's Strictly (PA Media)

“I wanted to dance, it was my decision – they offered to let me have the week off, but I thought I’ll see how I feel, and if I can dance, I should do.”

The actor had dedicated his routine to men’s mental health in the VT during the show. “It was an important message,” he says. “I loved the song, and I thought if I can get through it I should do it – it just didn’t go as well as I hoped.”

Mellor says he’s much better now, although he’s not 100% well yet and still feels “drained”. But he’ll be dancing on Saturday, and says his bad experience on last week’s show has made him “more determined this week to get it right”.

The intense training has been a huge boost to his health. He says: “I’m massively fit, and I’ve lost loads of weight – I don’t know how much. When I say I’m fitter, I don’t know if that’s contributed to what I’ve caught because maybe I was a bit run-down from all the training.”

But he adds: “I’m absolutely loving being in the show and the experience, because every week I’ve got a new skill to learn. There’s a lot of pressure, and you’ve got to put a lot of graft in, but if you get it right, the pay-off is amazing on that Saturday night.

“When it goes well, it feels great. But then you’ve got the other side of it like this week, when it didn’t go so well. It’s like a rollercoaster, you’re up and down.”

Coronation Street viewers have seen Mellor’s villainous character Harvey Gaskell return to the show this week in scenes shot before he started his tough six-days-a-week training schedule for Strictly.

Strictly Comes Dancing continues on BBC One from 6.40pm on Saturday.

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