Shaun Wright-Phillips has revealed he became emotional backstage after performing in the Strictly Come Dancing dance-off, with his partner Alexis Warr saying he "started getting all teared up".
The former footballer and his professional partner found themselves in the bottom two alongside Gavin and Stacey actress Melanie Walters and her partner Aljaz Skorjanec. After performing their routines again, Melanie's journey on the show came to an end.
Football criticism comparison
Speaking on the Strictly spin-off programme It Takes Two, Shaun compared the judges' feedback to his football career. "I think that element of the judges giving information brings me back to when I played football," he said.
"From when I was 13, I've been criticised in football, and sometimes you take it as a criticism, and sometimes you take it as information to get better. That is how I took what the judges said; at the end of the day, they're the professionals, they're seeing it from a different view."
Emotional moment backstage
After returning to the dance floor to perform their quickstep in the dance-off, Alexis revealed Shaun's reaction. "After he did it, he got emotional. We went backstage, and he started getting all teared up," she said.
Describing his feelings, Shaun replied: "I performed it; she [Alexis] was over the moon about it, so that made me even happier. It honestly felt like I was climbing Mount Everest or something."
Preparing for Icons Week
The duo are now preparing for Icons Week on Saturday night, where they will perform a couple's choice routine to a James Brown medley. "So far, it's going very, very well in terms of steps and stuff like that," Alexis said.
"She's adopting a different approach this week in terms of learning everything at once. Instead of trying to do it like a puzzle, I'm doing it all in one so teaching the arms and legs together, start to get more co-ordination into it," she added, before saying: "I know there's co-ordination in you somewhere."
Strictly Come Dancing continues every Saturday on BBC One and BBC iPlayer.
