Shirley Ballas made her Dancing With The Stars debut as a guest judge during the show's Halloween episode on Tuesday 27 October, but her scoring left some viewers outraged. The Strictly Come Dancing head judge and former dance champion joined the American show for its Halloween special, where both her criticism and scoring proved harsher than judges usually deliver.
Throughout the night, her feedback was markedly different from the rest of the panel. Julia Stiles and Ezra Sosa received sevens and an eight from the permanent judges, but a four from Shirley. Likewise, Tatyana Ali and Jan Ravnik got three eights and then a four from the Strictly judge.
Viewers React With Fury
Some fans were left outraged and took to social media to share their fury and shock. One shared a gif of a shocked Hannah Fry on the Celebrity Traitors and said: "me seeing Shirley whip out that FOUR". Another added that they "gasped" when Shirley started giving her feedback.
Others accused the judge of being biased. "Giving Connor an 8 but Tatyana a 4 I hate Shirley and picking and choosing her favs to score high," one said. Another added: "Shirley Ballas you better give every man that dances from now on a 2 to compensate. Tatyana IS NOT going home this week."
Defence and Response
But others came to her defence, saying that she was scoring the dances correctly, and that the real problem was that many of the male celebrities had been given contemporary or jazz as their dance, which Shirley has less experience in compared to latin and ballroom.
"Y'all cannot blame Shirley for this," one viewer said. "She is giving good critiques and is rightfully judging harshly. The problem is the producers giving half the people contemporary/jazz because there's a lot less to criticize and basically everyone gets at least a 7 just for showing up."
During the show, the contestants were noticeably surprised and disappointed to receive lower scores than they were used to. Shirley responded to the reactions after the show, telling Good Morning America: "To me, those scores are actually still quite good because they're not twos and threes!"
She added: "Four, fives, and sixes to me is generally a good score. You're on a good track. And then, when you get to sevens, eights, and nines, you've really mastered your craft."
When a reporter told the judge that there have only been "a couple" of twos ever given to contestants across 35 seasons of Dancing With The Stars, Shirley laughed: "It's a good job I'm not a full-time judge on this, then, isn't it? Because I am still giving out threes on week seven on Strictly, but it's acceptable over there. I've never been a great person of fluff, which is, 'You're all great.' I like people to get some knowledge."
