Shirley Ballas reignites Pete Wicks favouritism row with ‘obsessive’ BBC Strictly scoring
BBC Strictly head judge Shirley Ballas, 64, is facing renewed claims of “favouritism” in her marking of celeb contestant Pete Wicks, 36.
The controversy arose during Strictly’s crucial semi-final this weekend which saw Chris McCausland, Sarah Hadland, Tasha Ghouri, JB Gill and Pete Wicks compete for a place in the final.
The celeb contestants danced two routines each with their pro partners.
Wicks and Jowita Przystal danced an Argentine Tango to Bittersweet by Symphony The Verve and Foxtrot to Beyond The Sea by Bobby Darin.
Their efforts saw them placed bottom of the semi-finals leaderboard, with a combined score of 65.
Head judge Shirley Ballas was the most generous to the pair, awarding them 18 points overall compared to a brutal 14 from Craig Revel Horwood.
Fans were quick to accuse the 64-year-old of biased marking and took to social media to vent their frustrations.
One fan fumed: “Shirley is obsessed with Pete, it drives me mad!!”
“9?!!!! not even hiding her favouritism anymore,” another raged.
A third lambasted: “Shirley never beating the ‘biased for her favourite boys’ allegations”.