BBC Breakfast presenter Dan Walker danced the Tango in Strictly Come Dancing’s quarter final on Saturday night. He performed with his professional dance partner Nadiya Bychkova to the track Santa Maria by Gotan Project. However, some viewers have questioned how Dan’s managed to reach such a late stage in the competition, with some suggesting it’s a “fix”. Despite receiving some negative comments online, Dan has made it clear he’s not going to let it affect him and has even called out some of his critics on Twitter.
After Strictly fans saw Dan make it through to the quarter finals, some were enraged and took to Twitter to suggest he was undeserving of his place.
“Oh for f*** f*****g sake… I’m seriously p****d off. That is an absolute disgrace. Dan can’t dance and should’ve been voted off weeks ago. Someone who is good and who can dance is going to go now. IT’S A FIX,” Nikki fumed.
However, Dan responded to the Tweet, questioning why the viewer was so angry.
“I genuinely can’t understand how you can get so angry about it Nikki. I hope it hasn’t ruined your weekend,” Dan wrote.
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“Because, you’re a nice guy Dan, but you can’t dance sweetheart. Good people are going while you stay in and you haven’t even been in the dance off. It’s a joke,” Nikki hit back.
Dan hit back: “Ok… that’s you angry at the British public. I get that. Can you explain how you think it’s a fix? Genuinely interested in the conspiracy theory.”
Nikki replied: “Unlike other public voting shows, the BBC never produce their voting figures so it’s easy to fix. As I said before, you’re a nice guy but it’s a dance competition not a popularity contest. I’m not the only one that thinks this… but I seem to be the only one being questioned.”
Since then, Dan appears to be trying to focus more on the positive messages he receives online.
“Two: the one person I need to check on how we’re doing is this lady here [Nadiya]. If she’s happy, I’m happy.
“And three: I understand people care about the programme, and they’ll send you stuff and say, ‘I hate you’ or ‘I can’t believe you’re still in it, you’re rubbish and tall and stupid. Get lost.’ You get all that, and that’s fine.
“But if you can genuinely watch a programme like Strictly, which so many people love, and you can watch two people having the best time on a Saturday night just smiling and laughing and enjoying each other’s company and one guy’s never danced before learning a new skill from somebody who’s one of the best in the world of what she does… If you watch that, and your first response is, ‘I hate them, why are they still in it?’ that says a lot more about you than it does about us,” Dan told Digital Spy.
On Sunday night Strictly Come Dancing fans will find out if Dan makes it through to the next round of the competition as the results of the public vote are revealed.