Fleur East breaks silence after Strictly Come Dancing dance off

Fleur East has spoken out after finding herself in the dance-off in Strictly Come Dancing’s latest series.

It was Richie Anderson and Giovanni Pernice who left Strictly in Sunday’s episode, the second couple to be sent home.

The pair faced Fleur and her professional partner Vito Coppola in the bottom two.

Judges Craig Revel Horwood, Moti Mabuse and Anton Du Beke voted to save Fleur while Shirley Ballas said she would’ve saved Richie.

Speaking on the Hits Radio Breakfast Show, Fleur admitted: “I couldn’t believe it. Of course, you know someone is going to be called but as soon as you hear your name it’s like ‘oh no’. There was so much technique in my dance and three terrifying lifts.

“I remember after I’d danced on Saturday I was like ‘phew, done it now, I can relax a little bit and think about the next dance’.

“But as soon as I knew I was in the bottom two I thought ‘Oh no I’ve got to do it again. I’ve got to do all those lifts again. And with added pressure!”

Fleur confessed she was “very nervous” about facing the dance off but thanked her pro partner for support.

“Vito just looked at me and said, ‘Well, you get to be Ariel again’ and it is an amazing dance to dance, so it’s really cool that,” she continued. “I got to do it again and I guess that’s what I’m going to take as a positive.”

And Fleur added: “I’m so happy and grateful that the judges saved us as I’m not ready to stop dancing with Vito.

“We’re just getting started!”

Meanwhile Vito said on the show: “The comments [from the judges] were kind of the same as previous weeks and that’s OK because it means that we still have stuff to improve on but it’s a shame that they didn’t notice the stuff we had improved from the previous week…

“They asked about footwork and we improved that, the frame was better. We did a super dangerous lift, that’s quite difficult to do and they didn’t notice, but it’s OK it just means we have to do more.”

Strictly Come Dancing continues Saturday and Sunday nights on BBC One.

You can catch up on episodes online via BBC iPlayer.