Tony Adams 'decided' to leave Strictly Come Dancing in a behind the scenes chat, before his exit was announced on camera by host Tess Daly.
While he has been at the bottom of the leaderboard nearly every week since the start of this year's Strictly, ex Arsenal defender Tony and pro partner Katya Jones had managed to evade the bottom two, as viewers and plenty of Gunners fans picked up their phones to keep him in the competition.
The England centre back found himself languishing at the bottom of the Strictly standings again on Saturday, after his and Katya's jive to Land of a Thousands dances received a lukewarm response and low scores from the judges. This left him and Katya relying heavily on public support and, after viewer votes were counted, they weren't enough to keep the couple out of danger.
READ MORE: Strictly result drama as Tony Adams withdraws before dance-off
Tony and Katya were the second pair to been informed they'd been condemned to the dance-off, after Tyler West and Dianne Buswell were told they'd landed in the drop zone for the first time earlier on in the results show, which was filmed hours after Saturday's live broadcast. Tony was told by the Strictly judges to go back out there and give it all he's got but, there was to be no dance-off as Tess announced Tony had withdrawn before either of the bottom two couples had the chance to perform again.
Tony's exit meant Tyler and Dianne were automatically through to Blackpool week, and, while news of Tony's sudden exit came as a big surprise to viewers at home, Strictly bosses were already aware of his decision. Addressing his departure and how it came about, a BBC source said: "After finding out he would be facing the dance off, Tony had a chat with producers and stated that both he and the physio were concerned that dancing the jive again in the dance off could cause further injury and he had therefore decided he would instead withdraw from the competition.’"
Tony addressed his injury issues during a chat on It Takes Two earlier this week. Talking about his and Katya's jive routine, he said: "The last lift doesn't look that hard but it was killing my back and I said 'look, we're only going to practice this now and again.
"And I actually got the hammy string that attaches on the back there when I stretch like that, I can still feel it back there now, it kind of went on the Friday didn't it beforehand. And I'm like 'argh!', let's not do that."
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