Dancing On Ice pro Matt Evers accuses judges of undermarking Candice Brown

Dancing On Ice pro Matt Evers has accused the judges of undermarking his routine with Candice Brown.

Sunday saw Dancing On Ice make a triumphant return to TV, with over 7 million viewers.

Dancing were Love Island’s Kem Cetinay and his pro partner Alex Murphy, athlete Perri Shakes-Drayton and pro skater Hamish Gaman and X Factor’s Jake Quickenden and skater Vanessa Bauer.

They were joined by Hollyoaks star Stephanie Waring with Sylvain Longchambon, Corrie actor Antony Cotton and Brandee Malto and finally Great British Bake Off’s Candice with Matt.

At the end of each routine, judges Jayne Torvill, Christopher Dean, Jason Gardiner and Ashley Banjo marked the celebs out of 10. Viewers could then vote for their favourite.

Candice and Matt were ranked bottom of the scoreboard and are in the first skate off next weekend. They’ll face the celebrity skater who ranks bottom of the celebs still to perform, and one will be eliminated.

But Matt reckons the scores Candice received from the judges weren’t fair.

He said: “Personally for me we were a .5 undermarked across the board. The audience went ‘oh my God no’ – if I was judging the performance we were a .5 undermarked.”

Speaking to The Sun newspaper following the weekend’s show, Matt added: “We skated second and to a slow piece of music which nobody else had – everyone else had a fast piece of music. We were more exposed.

“You can’t hide behind a gimmick, you can’t hide behind sass choreography – in a slow piece of music it is beautiful and elegant.”

Meanwhile, Matt revealed that a kiss between the pair at the end of their routine was NOT planned.

He explained: “I had no idea she was going to do that. I didn’t know how she was going to react in front of a live studio audience.

“So when she nailed the ­performance and she stayed in character, I looked at her and squeezed her hand and she looked at me and her eyes welled up. Of course she wanted to hug me and give me a kiss — it just happened.”

Dancing On Ice 2018 airs Sunday nights on ITV.