Shirley Ballas in BBC Strictly ‘sexism’ row after ‘objectifying’ Pete Wicks remarks: ‘Imagine a man said it!’

Shirley Ballas has found herself at the centre of a “double standards” row among BBC Strictly Come Dancing viewers after Pete Wicks and Jowita Przystal performed on Saturday night.

The duo took on a Cha Cha to I’m Too Sexy by Right Said Fred, a routine that saw Wicks don a pair of skin-tight pink trousers and unbuttoned shirt.

Accompanied by a team of back-up dancers, the Strictly pair took on the raunchy routine to raucous applause from the Blackpool crowd.

And it seems pulses were sent racing behind the judging panel too as once Wicks and Przystal joined Tess Daly to hear their feedback, giddiness had set in.

“Pete, Pete, Pete. You’ve changed,” Daly joked as she made light of Wicks’ pink trousers, shirt, and fluffy jacket combination. “Shirley I think was just loving every moment.”

The cameras then cut to Ballas who was keeled over the judging panel while Motsi Mabuse and Anton Du Beke were in hysterics.

Attempting to join in with the joke, Wicks said to the flustered head judge: “Shirley, how do you feel, darling? I feel great!”

Leaning into the suggestion Ballas had found the routine rather exhilarating, she replied: “Oh well, you know…Erm, let me think!”

Trying to regain her composure, she continued: “There was definite – do you know what? I’ll have to calm myself down. You had some very good isolation and a very clean neckline.”

Du Beke began to fan Ballas down as she tried to deliver constructive feedback: “You did a Cuban Break there, the crossover with your feet.

“Your hips swinging left and right…” she continued as laughter emanated from the crowd.

She signed off: “I mean, it was very entertaining. I don’t think I’m going to forget this evening for as long as I live darling.”

Wicks smiled as he took the comments in his stride before Du Beke then joked about a part of the routine that saw him walk backward on the dancefloor.

“All we could see was left cheek, right cheek, left cheek, right cheek,” he said before gesturing towards Ballas: “She hasn’t been the same since… The Cha Cha was lacking but the dance was amazing.”

Craig Revel Horwood’s critique was a lot more dance-focussed, criticising the routine for Wicks appearing to “fight” every stage of it.

In the end, Wicks ended up bottom of the leaderboard at the end of the night with a score of 27 and while several fans took to the web to suggest he’d been “stitched up” by the combination of song and dance style, others hit out at Ballas and the comments made towards him, with some alluding to a different standards between the two sexes.

On X, formerly Twitter, one fan slammed: “Haven’t watched #Strictly for a long time, but I switched on just now and was really uncomfortable with the judges’ comments about Pete & Jowita. So much focus on his tight trousers instead of actually judging the dancing. Wouldn’t fly for a female contestant! Gross.”

A second echoed: “Didn’t enjoy Pete tonight He looked uncomfortable And Shirley gushing over him… embarrassing #Strictly.”

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Meanwhile, a third slammed the “double standards”: “#Strictly if a man had said about a woman contestant what Shirley said about Pete he’d have been in a lot of trouble. #DoubleStandards.”

“I’m sorry I’m gonna be that person, if say Anton reacted to a female contestant the way Shirley reacts to Pete, the complaints would be off the chart and the mans career would be over,” commented a fourth. “Why do we accept Shirley acting like a screeching teenager? #Strictly.”

“It’s appalling,” a fifth replied. “You couldn’t objectify a female contestant and refer to her physical attributes in that way. I really don’t like it!”

Elsewhere, a sixth slammed the nature of the routine altogether: “Is #StrictlyComeDancing a dance competition or a sex show? Pete and Jowita played Shirley like a fiddle. Seeing her absolutely drool over him is pathetic. A bit of thrusting and playing to the audience is okay but that was another level.”