James Jordan was "irritated by the judges" on ‘Strictly Come Dancing’ this week because they made the wrong decision when they voted off Dev Griffin and Dianne Buswell.
The former ‘Strictly’ professional thinks the panel – comprised of Craig Revel Horwood, Motsi Mabuse, Bruno Tonioli and head judge Shirley Ballas – made a mistake in axing the Radio One DJ and his partner over Viscountess Emma Weymouth and Aljaz Skorjanec in the dance-off, and he believes the show suffers from losing celebrities who can master the ballroom skills like Dev.
Speaking in and his wife Ola Jordan’s Strictly Speaking column for HELLO! Online, he said: "I loved all of the dancing this week, but I was just irritated by the judges. It was such a great show, but we were disappointed that Dev and Dianne are gone! It happens every year, to be fair. Dev had so much to give. He was brilliant in my opinion. I felt the show itself did its job, the pros did their job, the celebrities did their job, but the judges didn’t do their job. It was a bit of a farce. The wrong person this evening is gone. It comes from the judging being all over the place. I mean, David and Nadiya with 28 points in front of five other couples. It’s impossible."
James – who last appeared on the programme in 2013 – thinks that former England goalkeeper David James and his partner Nadiya Bychkova were scored too high for the improvements they showed during their quickstep to ‘From Now On’ from ‘The Greatest Showman’.
He added: "They clearly wanted to save David and Nadiya. David’s improved and the judges should have commented on that you know, ‘You’re going in the right direction, brilliant improvement.’ That’s fine. But he got 28 points. So I just find it nonsensical. I can’t for the life of me think why they would want to save him over someone like Dev. To put him so high on the leaderboards to have the possibility of a better dancer going doesn’t make sense to me at all.
"The public aren’t the experts, but from reading my Twitter account they seem to get it more right than the judges have. The only job they have to get right is get the leaderboard right because otherwise they’ll have people like Dev, who in my opinion was an amazing talent, brilliant for the show, now he’s gone home because the judges didn’t do their job. People can say it’s only a TV show but you could see how much it means to these people, you invest so much into it. He was devastated, he was standing there and you could see how upset he was."
And fellow former ‘Strictly’ star Ola – who is pregnant with the couple’s first child – agrees with her husband that David and Nadiya’s inflated score cost Dev and Dianne their place on the BBC One programme.
She said: "You can say all dance is based on opinion but the ballroom and Latin world is very technical. And it’s not like you have contemporary dancing and say, ‘It’s based on opinion’, but no, it’s based on fundamentals of dance movement. There is no way that David and Nadiya should have been in the middle of the leaderboard. They are still are probably one of the most improved couple of the night. But still the worst."
James Jordan; Strictly judges should’ve saved Dev Griffin
