Ola Jordan has urged Strictly Come Dancing bosses to consider changing the judges after Shirley Ballas faced a backlash for her decision to send home Shayne Ward.
Former X Factor winner and Coronation Street star Ward, 40, found himself in the bottom two with opera singer Wynne Evans, 52.
While judges Craig Revel Horwood and Motsi Mabuse opted to save Ward and send home Evans instead, Anton Du Beke elected to save Evans, prompting Shirley Ballas to cast the fate-sealing vote. As head judge, her vote carried more weight and proved decisive.
The results left viewers frustrated with many online accusing Ballas of “favourtism”.
Jordan - who served as a pro on the BBC dance competition from 2006 until 2015, winning in 2009 with news presenter Chris Hollins - said the solution was to change up the judges.
Speaking to The Standard on behalf of Mecca Bingo, she explained: “If they swap dances every now and then, why shouldn't they swap the judges?
“There's plenty of people that could sit on that panel. It would make it fresher every year with different kind of opinions and different eyes looking at it.
“As a professional, you can have different opinions, but this is the thing about dancing it is based on an opinion, not who runs faster or gets to the finish line quicker. I do think they should mix it up the same as they are mixing up the dancers.”
As for whether she agreed with Ballas’ decision on this occasion, she said: “Oh, it's a bit of a tricky one. We’ve got to start with the fight that everyone's got their own opinion. My opinion is still valid, everyone's opinions are valid, so it depends who sits on that panel.
“I thought that Shayne was too low on the leaderboard, he was in the bottom two and the judges could say well people obviously didn't vote for him, which is correct, but he was still in the wrong place on the leaderboard to start with for me.
“When I look at the whole line-up, he had 30 points, I think he should have got more, I thought he should have had more than Chris [McCausland], Chris got 33 points.
“The leaderboard is combined with people's votes as well, so Shayne’s probably not getting that many votes, that’s why he was in the bottom two, but let's say Montell [Douglas] she might be still getting the same votes than Shayne, but because she's higher on the leaderboard, she will not go down to the bottom two.”
Jordan also thinks the style of dance Ward was given could have played a factor in his exit.
She said: “Last week I said [Shayne’s] going to be in the bottom two because he's not getting many votes. He got rumba, which is a tricky dance, you can't compare that to a couple's choice. With Chris and Diane [Buswell’s] couples’ choice there's not much technique there.
“Rumba is a much more difficult dance than the couple’s choice, Pete [Wicks] and Jowita [Przystal] did an amazing couples’ choice, but he doesn't have to have straight legs and hip action.
“I do think Shayne did a great job and I wasn't a fan of his dancing in previous weeks, I was always quite critical, but in this instance, I think he was too low on the leaderboard. So, he had no chance to not be in a bottom two, because we all knew that he was in the bottom two already twice before, this is the third time.”
