I was on Strictly Come Dancing – bosses are trying to force Chris McCausland out of competition, claims Vanessa Feltz
VANESSA Feltz thinks that the bosses of Strictly Come Dancing are deliberately trying to force Chris McCausland out of the competition.
Last week saw a twist in the format of the long-running BBC One show as fans slammed the change.
Chris McCausland, 47, was the first star to be eliminated from the dreaded Sambathon on Strictly Come Dancing over the weekend.
Vanessa Feltz, 62, previously competed on the show in 2013 and she has now weighed in on the controversy.
The This Morning presenter claimed it might have been a way for execs to make sure the comedian was the next star to be eliminated.
In a new video posted onto her YouTube channel, the legendary TV broadcaster explained: “The bosses at the BBC, I mean the senior producers and all the people in charge of the program, when they want to get rid of you, they have ways of dislodging you.
“One is the music that they choose to make you dance to. The other is the VT, the videotape of what you’ve been doing that week.
“The other, of course, is the costume you could like a right
prannit. And when you look like a prannit, people don’t vote for you. There’s all that going on.
“But now let’s put another unexpected ingredient into the mix, the samba dance-a-thon”.
The former TalkTV star insinuated that the Sambathon was a way to ‘dislodge’ Chris in the competition as she said that it was “not a level playing field.”
She asked: “Was it fair to put them in this context? Was it fair, or was it just a way of giving Chris the fewest points, moving him down the leaderboard and saying without saying goodbye, sayonara, farewell?
“I think that that Sambathon was unfair to Chris and Diane. I did not like it as I saw it happening.”
In her rant she continued: “I thought, This is not a level playing field here. This is not fair. This is not right.
“They’ve introduced this. I reckon it’s because they want to say goodbye to Chris.
“I don’t want these left field obstacles flung in his path. It’s not fair. I told you, when the bosses on Strictly have had enough of you, they have ways of making you leave.”
Chris won legions of fans as the first blind contestant to compete on the beloved prime-time ballroom and Latin competition.
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Chris McCausland and Dianne Buswell
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Sam Quek MBE and Nikita Kuzmin
Sarah Hadland and Vito Coppola
Shayne Ward and Nancy Xu
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Vanessa thinks the controversial part of the show may have put the comedian at an immediate disadvantage.
“It’s incredibly difficult for anyone to negotiate a dance a song when you don’t know where the people that you’re dancing in competition with are going,” the star suggested.
“You don’t know where they’re headed, you haven’t seen their choreography, you haven’t had a chance to practice altogether on the floor.
“When you can see everything that’s going on, it’s still incredibly difficult to avoid a collision when, like Chris, you cannot see, you do not have the power of sight.”
When the bosses on Strictly have had enough of you, they have ways of making you leave.
Vanessa Feltz
She added: “Can you imagine how difficult that was for him and for Diane?
“Diane is trying to negotiate, to navigate, not to crash into anybody, and lo and behold, who went out first in the Sambathon? Chris and Diane!”
The Sun has contacted Strictly Come Dancing for comment.
Strictly Come Dancing continues on BBC One and is available to watch on iPlayer.