BBC Strictly Come Dancing star breaks silence on feud with Shirley Ballas

Layton Williams, contestant on BBC's Strictly Come Dancing, has spoken out about rumours of a 'feud' with one of the show's judges.

His dance partner Nikita Kuzmin also stood up for him during their appearance on This Morning on Tuesday (November 28), after they narrowly avoided being kicked off the dance contest.

The duo received mixed reviews for their American Smooth routine to Bjork's It's Oh So Quiet on Saturday night, scoring a total of 34 points – lower than their usual scores. After the public vote, Layton and Nikita found themselves in the dreaded dance-off.

They faced off against Angela Scanlon and Carlos Gu, who performed their Cha Cha to Gloria Gaynor's I Will Survive again in an attempt to win over the judges and stay in the competition.

However, it was Angela and Carlos who were sent home, becoming the ninth couple to be eliminated from the competition after three of the four judges chose to save Layton and Nikita.

The actor and West End star, along with his dance partner, are getting ready for the quarter-finals this Saturday. During a break from training, they had a chat with Rochelle Humes and Craig Doyle on This Morning.

Layton was asked about representing the LGBTIQA+ community and he spoke about the trolling he has received: "It's just one of those things I had in my mind maybe it would happen but then I don't know, it's like: 'Really, are we still there?'"

Layton, 29, added: "I like to wear this, I do whatever I want and the team are really behind us." He also talked about some of the trolling he gets: "It's like: 'Can you not just dress like a man, please please please put a suit on!' and I'm like: 'Girl, relax!'"

Nikita, 25, quickly jumped in saying: "We get a bit defensive of our partners and just to see sometimes people speaking things or saying things they shouldn't be saying. Sometimes things also get to him, and that's a personal side, I find it sad and unnecessary [the trolling]. At the end of the day, we just want to make people happy, we just want to put on a show…"

Layton also told the hosts of the ITV daytime show: "I'm sure you know how it feels, you can have 1000 amazing messages and then just one [negative] and you're like: 'Urgh!' but in these moments, I've said it before and I'll say it again… even Beyonce has haters, so!"

When asked about the 'harsh' comment from the judges over the weekend, Layton said: "Shirley [Ballas] has always been on board," and when the hosts double-checked that everything was ok between the pair, Layton added: "We love Shirley." They also revealed they will be dancing to Moulin Rouge this weekend.

* This article was crafted with the help of an AI engine, which speeds up OK!'s editorial research and applies it to article templates created by journalists in our newsrooms. An OK! editor reviewed this content before it was published. You can report any errors to [email protected]

Source: Read Full Article