Thomas Skinner Reflects On Strictly Come Dancing Controversies

Former Strictly Come Dancing star Thomas Skinner has made something of a u-turn after his recent comments against the show.

After facing controversy for a string of reasons in the lead-up to last year’s Strictly launch, the former Apprentice candidate wound up becoming the first star to be eliminated from the series, after failing to impress the judges and viewers with his dance abilities.

Last month, it was revealed that Thomas had declined the customary invitation to perform in the Strictly final with the rest of his castmates, for what was originally said in the press to be a scheduling issue.

However, in a lengthy social media post shared the weekend of the Strictly final, Thomas hit out at the show and explained his reasoning for not showing up to the final.

Thomas alleged in his post that he had received “an anonymous email claiming to be from a BBC exec” the night of his elimination, telling him he’d “received far more votes” from the public “than it appeared and it wasn’t right”.

He wrote: “I have asked to see the official voting figures to back up the ones I was sent in the email but was told they couldn’t be shown to [me, and that they] have never been shown in the history of the show.”

Reports in the press also suggested at the time he was considering legal action against the BBC, though during an interview on Tuesday’s Good Morning Britain, it was made clear during presenters Susanna Reid and Ed Balls’ introduction that this was no longer the case.

“Listen, I did have some chats with the BBC,” he claimed. “I did, right? And they were like, ‘you’ve been [sent something] you shouldn’t have been sent, it is what it is, we think you should get some sort of legal advice’.

“And I’ve got no rows with the BBC. I was on the Celebrity Apprentice raising money for Children In Need the week after, and I’m doing bits with them next year.”

Asked about his no-show at the Strictly finale, he insisted: “The reason I didn’t come back, and this is the honest truth, was because I thought, ‘I’ve had all this bad press, I’ve been [on the] front page every time I’m on the show…’. I didn’t want to take away from everyone else. And I didn’t want my wife to sit there and think, ‘oh, there’s another story about us now’.”

He then pointed out: “I ended up being [on the] front page anyway, so it didn’t even matter.”

On the subject of whether he still believes there was “something else going on in terms of how you were treated on Strictly”, he said: “All I’m going to say is I’ve got a lot of bad noise in the press… it wasn’t good for the show. I know I can’t dance, and I enjoyed dancing with Amy [Dowden, his professional partner] because she’s an absolute legend.

“All I’m going to say is whenever I put something on social media, I get like 20 million views and about 200,000 likes…”

A BBC spokesperson previously told HuffPost UK: “Strictly Come Dancing’s public vote is independently overseen and verified to ensure complete accuracy every week. Any claims to the contrary are entirely without foundation.

“Unfortunately, despite requests for it, Mr Skinner is yet to share the email he references with anyone from the BBC so we are unable to comment on it.”

Meanwhile, a rep for the independent company PromoVeritas – which oversees Strictly’s voting – said in a statement: “All votes are independently and comprehensively verified by two auditors.

“We can confirm that all votes received are validated. This has been the case every week and we have reported no issues with the public vote or how it is being represented in the final results.”

Following his elimination during last year’s series of Strictly, Thomas expressed regret for having taken part in the show at all.