Strictly Come Dancing star Will Mellor has voiced his frustration after the judges’ critiques during last week’s show.
Will received his lowest score of the series on Saturday night after he and his professional partner Nancy Xu performed a Rumba routine to Ed Sheeran’s The Joker And The Queen.
However, the Line Of Duty star had been suffering with the flu for a week before his performance – which he spoke about on screen – and admitted to the PA news agency he thinks the judges could have been more lenient with him because of his illness.
“I’d only trained for about five hours that week because I’d been in bed with the full-on flu virus,” he said.
“I was in a bad way. The judges knew, but they just decided not to mention it or take it into consideration. I was a bit annoyed by it, to be honest, because I was struggling, and when you’re that way you feel a bit sorry for yourself, and when I got the scores I was a bit, ‘After all that…?!’.
“I got a four from Craig [Revel Horwood], but that’s just the way it is. They have to judge it as they see it, and that’s up to them.”
He added “Maybe I shouldn’t have [danced], because the judges slagged me off – I should’ve just left it!”
However, despite pointing out it was “hard taking criticism when you’re not feeling great”, Will insisted: “I don’t want it to come across that I’m complaining about the judges’ scoring – that’s part of the competition.
“I wanted to dance, it was my decision – they offered to let me have the week off, but I thought I’ll see how I feel, and if I can dance, I should do.”
Will also said his low score has made him “more determined this week to get it right” ahead of his Viennese Waltz performance on Saturday night.
He and Nancy will be dancing to the Line Of Duty theme tune during the show’s one-off BBC 100 special, as part of the broadcaster’s centenary celebrations.
Meanwhile, co-star Fleur East recently revealed that a number of her Strictly cast members had also been struck down with the flu in the lead-up to Saturday’s live show.
Strictly Come Dancing continues on Saturday night at 6.40pm on BBC One.