Strictly Come Dancing professional Nancy Xu and her celebrity partner Bethany Antonia found themselves in the bottom two during the Sunday result show, prompting former pro Brendan Cole to deliver a blunt verdict.
The pair performed the Cha Cha to Aretha Franklin's Respect, earning 27 points from the judges, but failed to impress viewers at home. They faced elimination alongside Julian Caillon and Sarah Storey, who were ultimately voted off the competition.
Brendan Cole's warning to Nancy
Brendan, who was a pro on Strictly between 2004 and 2017, urged Nancy to "step it up" if she wants to avoid another dance-off. Speaking to the Daily Express, he said: "If you want to avoid the bottom two, you have to be better. You have to blow everybody away."
"With so many people in the competition, if you're just one of the couples doing a really nice dance, you're going to be at risk. You have got to be amazing, and that means your pro has to be amazing," he added.
On behalf of Sky Vegas, Brendan continued: "So, Nancy has to step up and do a better job with Bethany to get her away from the bottom two. I didn't love what they did with the Cha Cha, but the Cha Cha is a horrible dance to make somebody amazing in."
Bethany's positive response
After the dance-off, Bethany took to Instagram to thank her supporters, saying: "We just did our first dance-off." The House of the Dragon star expressed gratitude to those who "did vote and gave us support for our dance last night".
"Honestly, it means so much, all the lovely comments, all the lovely messages and compilations everyone's making. We are having so much fun doing this, and I just feel so proud that I get to do this with Nancy, and we're honestly just having the best time. And the Cha Cha was not my dance. We can now say that," she concluded.
Looking ahead to Saturday's live show, Bethany teased a "really good" routine, saying: "Before we went on, I was like, 'I just want to make it through so we can do this dance because it's really good'. And now we get to! So, thank you so much for all the lovely messages, and we go again."
