What did you miss?
Strictly’s JB Gill has defended himself after backlash over his former dance experience, saying what he’s doing on the show is “completely different”.
The JLS star has faced criticism over the fact that he has danced before in the boy band, while others go into the BBC competition with no experience on a dancefloor at all. However, he insisted during an interview on The One Show that the moves he’s learning on Strictly are new to him.
His pro partner Amy Dowden also weighed in, making it clear he had “never taken a dance lesson in his life”.
What, how and why?
The pair were on the BBC show’s sofa on Wednesday 16 October, when Gill said: “Of course, ballroom and Latin dancing is completely different to any type of choreography that I have done before.
“Certainly different to commercial dancing. Everything has to be still from the waist up, you have to have good posture.”
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Dowden then added: “JB has actually never taken a dance lesson in his life.
“He has just done a bit of choreography with the boys. But the choreography he has done with the boys couldn’t be further away from Latin and ballroom.”
The pair also discussed how Gill has performed some of JLS’s moves on Strictly, with the star saying that his bandmates “clocked it”.
“Amy was like, ‘I am going to give you a little bit of free rein’,” he said, as he explained that the pro let him add some JLS dance moves.
JB Gill says week four dance was ‘difficult’
Gill and Dowden ended up towards the top of the Strictly leaderboard after week four, landing a score of 30 out of 40 from Shirley Ballas and co. However, the singer admitted that mastering the tricky Rumba hadn’t been easy.
“I genuinely started the week not friends with the Rumba,” he laughed. “It was difficult.”
However, after getting down to work in the studio, the steps all came together.
“By the end of the week and certainly by show day I absolutely loved it,” said Gill. “And I had to eat my words because Amy was like, ‘I am going to make you fall in love with it’ and I was like, OK’.”
The One Show is on BBC One from Monday to Friday at 7pm.
Strictly Come Dancing continues on BBC One at 6.25pm on Saturday.
