Strictly Come Dancing favourite Debbie McGee faces more ‘fix’ claims

Giovanni Pernice has defended his Strictly Come Dancing celeb partner Debbie McGee against fix claims.

Debbie, TV personality, presenter and the widow of magician Paul Daniels, is the current favourite on this year’s series and topped the leaderboard again last week.

But some viewers have claimed that the Graduate of The Royal Ballet School shouldn’t be competing on the show.

According to reports, those thoughts are even shared by some of the celebs.

A source told heat magazine this week: “Debbie gets on with everyone, but a lot of the celebs are moaning behind her back, saying it’s not fair how a trained professional can compete on a show like this.

“She’s been dancing all her life, so she’s going to pick up the moves quickly, but nobody seems to refer to it,” said the insider, referring to how people have spoken about Alexandra Burke and Aston Merrygold’s past experience.

However Giovanni hit back in an interview with the magazine: “Obviously she is a good dancer, but ballet is completely different to Latin and Ballroom, and she has to pick up a new routine every week.

“It’s very hard and I’m so proud of her.”

Last month, Debbie hit back at the idea her previous training would help her.

“I had ballet training over 30 years ago, it’s so opposite to anything I have ever done,” she told ITV’s This Morning. “The thing is, it’s so different to ballroom and Latin. I’ve never done anything like this. “

Debbie went on: “I danced over thirty years ago, I would describe it as a bit like if you asked a footballer to go and do something else thirty years later.

“It’s a completely different muscle, when you’re older, any muscle that stayed a bit trained from 30 years ago I’ve now got to untrain that, which is hard.”

Strictly Come Dancing 2017 is back on Saturday night on BBC One.