Two-time Strictly Come Dancing champion Oti Mabuse has criticised head judge Shirley Ballas and Craig Revel Horwood for creating an "uncomfortable" atmosphere on the show, saying the judging was "crazy" and that some couples were "massively underscored."
Speaking on her podcast The Fifth Judge, which she co-hosts with her husband and fellow professional dancer Marius Iepure, the former Strictly pro discussed last Saturday's show and described the scoring as "madness." She said: "First, what was going on with the judging? The judging, I thought, was crazy."
Marius disagreed, telling his wife: "I loved it", which prompted her to exclaim in shock: "You loved it? There's no way!" Marius explained: "It wasn't boring, first of all."
Underscored and Overscored Couples
Oti then acknowledged: "It wasn't boring, yes, but I think some people were massively underscored and it was so uncomfortable to watch, and then I thought other people were massively overscored."
Oti believes that Shirley's stint as a guest judge on Dancing with the Stars in America, where she made headlines for her low scores, inspired her to "play that role of the mean judge" on Strictly too. However, in the UK, Craig is usually the toughest member of the panel, meaning they ended up competing with one another.
Continuing her rant, Oti shared: "This is what I think, I think Shirley last week went to America, was the mean judge, got all the press."
Judges Competing With Each Other
"She flipped Dancing with the Stars upside down, she came back to Strictly, she flipped Strictly upside down and then Craig said, 'that's my job. You can do that in America, but my job is to be the mean judge here, and if you're going to be mean, I have to be just as meaner.'"
"And so what it did to me is, it made me go, 'ah, this is such a sad show, because I can see these couples are working so hard'. And I feel like the two of them, Shirley and Craig, didn't make it about the couples, they made it about themselves."
"They made it about who can play that role of the mean judge and they completely took away the hard work that you put in as a professional and as a celeb."
Dance Off Survival
Oti was particularly frustrated with Cach Mercer and Maddie Ingoldsby only being given a four from Craig for their Waltz and a six from Shirley, while fellow judges Anton Du Beke and Motsi Mabuse gave them eights.
She added: "To come in on a Saturday night and do that at week seven, to get a four! We're talking about it, it's great, we're talking about it, but then it's like, who is this about, really? A four for Cach?"
Due to being at the bottom of the leaderboard, Cach and Maddie ended up in the dance off against Bethany Antonia and Nancy Xu, but managed to keep their place in the show.
Marius shared the same opinion with Oti on this, admitting: "Sometimes the points they were saying, they were so against the other judges, and I was like, that's a bit too much." Oti, who is Strictly judge Motsi's younger sister, agreed: "They were so against Motsi and Anton and usually I'm like, 'Anton, you're doing a bit too much', but this week I was like, 'we need Anton, we need Motsi, we need a 10!'"
