Brendan Cole, a former Strictly Come Dancing participant, has taken aim at current contestant Zara McDermott.
Before being ousted in 2017, the former professional dancer performed on the first 15 seasons of Strictly, partnering with artists such as Fiona Phillips, Lisa Snowdon, and Sophie Ellis-Bextor.
This year, he’s been talking about everything from the ‘Strictly curse’ to how he struggles to get along with his celebrity partners.
But now he’s shifted his attention to Zara, a previous Love Island contestant, and claims he understands why she’s still competing.
Brendan feels her enormous social media following – she has 1.8 million Instagram followers – is affecting the panel’s decision, despite the fact that she and professional partner Graziano Di Prima have delighted the judges with their routines thus far.
‘I’m led to believe she has got a tonne of followers across her various social media platforms,’ he said.
‘The judges will like that, and the show will like that, because they always want to attract a younger audience.
‘Every year, we have a YouTube star or an Instagram influencer and it’s great for the show, as it’ll mean more followers for the show and everything is measured by how many Instagram followers you have these days,’ he added when speaking to Sky Bingo, as reported by The Sun.
He continued: ‘So the cynical side of me says they are going to keep Zara around because it means more interest in the show.’
The dancer then said the pair ‘looked pretty to watch’ but slammed their dancing as ‘poor’.
‘That was one of the worst Foxtrots we’ve seen on the show, even if it looked pretty, so I’m not sure why they were saved.’
Zara responded to criticism of her dancing talents earlier this week when someone on social media offered guidance.
She appeared to have the final laugh by revealing she had been working hard in the competition, pointing out that the tape they were criticising on was recorded before the programme even begun.
She did, however, forced to take some time off this week after her partner Sam Thompson went to the clinic with acute kidney problems.
Sam said on his podcast with Pete Wicks that he felt he was ‘dying’, with Zara leaving rehearsals to check on him.
Despite the commotion, it was discovered that he had ‘nothing wrong’ with him.
Strictly Come Dancing continues on Saturday at 6:40pm on BBC One.
Source My Celebrity Life.