Hits Radio Breakfast Show host Fleur East spoke out this morning about being in the bottom two for this weekend’s Strictly Come Dancing. Having danced an American Smooth to The Little Mermaid’s ‘Part of Your World’ for Movie Week, Fleur and dance partner Vito found themselves in the dance off against Richie Anderson and his pro Giovanni Pernice. Saved by judges Anton, Motsi and Craig – although not head judge Shirley, who would have put Richie through – Fleurito survived to dance another week:
Fleur revealed what it was like when her name was called: ‘I couldn’t believe it. Of course, you know someone is going to be called but as soon as you hear your name it’s like ‘oh no’. There was so much technique in my dance and three terrifying lifts and I remember after I’d danced on Saturday I was like ‘phew, done it now, I can relax a little bit and think about the next dance’. But as soon as I knew I was in the bottom two I thought ‘Oh no I’ve got to do it again. I’ve got to do all those lifts again. And with added pressure!’ So, I was very nervous; very, very nervous. Vito just looked at me and said, ‘well you get to be Ariel again’ and it is an amazing dance to dance, so it’s really cool that I got to do it again and I guess that’s what I’m going to take as a positive. I’m so happy and grateful that the judges saved us as I’m not ready to stop dancing with Vito. We’re just getting started!’
Dance partner Vito joined the team in the studio and gave his thoughts on the dreaded dance off and the judges comments: ‘Ofcourse we always are grateful for the feedback and we take it seriously because we want to work and improve. The comments were kind of the same as previous weeks and that’s OK because it means that we still have stuff to improve on but it’s a shame that they didn’t notice the stuff we had improved from the previous week. Craig asked about head shape and positioning - we improved that. They asked about footwork - we improved that, the frame was better. We did a super dangerous lift, that’s quite difficult to do and they didn’t notice, but it’s OK it just means we have to do more.’
He continued: ‘The dance off was unexpected but it gave me another chance to dance with the little Fleurmaid! And I got so many messages from people saying we didn’t vote because we thought you were going to go through. Sometimes people think ‘they’re good, they’ll be safe’ and they don’t vote but people need to vote!’
This from Vito prompted co-host James to admit that he had been one of those people! ‘I didn’t vote as I was driving and I didn’t’ have time, but I thought you were safe!’
