Strictly Come Dancing’s Debbie McGee has hit back at her critics.
Debbie, TV personality, presenter and the widow of magician Paul Daniels, is the current favourite on this year’s series.
But some viewers have claimed that the Graduate of The Royal Ballet School shouldn’t be competing on the show.
Now Debbie has spoken out to give her side of the claims.
Opening up about her past ‘dance experience’, Debbie explained: “The truth is that I went to a local dancing school when I was young. I then went to the Royal Ballet School to do the teacher’s course when I was 16 and it was for three years.
“I then went into a ballet company in Iran. When I came back from that, after the revolution broke out in 1979, I was 19 and that’s when I started working with Paul. I was a dancer on his live shows and did some work with the second generation dance group.”
She continued: “But I was 23 when I gave up dancing and I’m 59 now.
“Since then I’ve sat around television studios, got in and out of boxes and toured. I had no idea how hard and how different ballroom an Latin were until doing Strictly.”
In an interview with OK! Magazine, Debbie went on to say she wasn’t bothered by the the criticisms anyway.
“I’ve been in the public eye for a long time and I’ve read more lies than truth,” she said. “My family get upset but I don’t.
“People used to call me a bimbo or say I married Paul for his money. I know it’s because they hadn’t bothered to get to know me. I had my own money when I married him and he wasn’t a millionaire either!”
Strictly Come Dancing 2017 is back on Sunday night at 7:15PM with the latest results.
