Strictly Come Dancing star Brendan Cole has claimed that Shayne Ward received “harsh” treatment over his exit from the show.

The former Strictly Professional has opened up on his views on Shayne’s exit over the weekend after judge Shirley Ballas controversially chose to send him home instead chosing to save Wynne Evans. Brendan felt that professional dancer Nancy Xu was right to be upset after he claimed Shirley’s comments about Shayne were also uncalled for as he gave his take on the fateful dance-off.

Asked what he thought about Shirley’s decision and her comments Brendan told SkyVegas: “[Shirley Ballas saving Wynne Evans for doing a jollier number] is where the show goes wrong because it’s not based on personality, and it’s not based on what dance style you’re doing. To even make that comment is fairly harsh.

“It’s supposed to be about who is the best at that moment, who has put the best performance in the dance-off. When I say performance, I don’t mean the bigger, louder number. I mean who has done the best dance regardless of style. You can’t compare a Rumba and an American Smooth, so you’ve got to base it on the technical aspect and the performance aspect as a whole.”

Shayne and Nancy lost the dance off ( 
Image:
BBC/Guy Levy)

Brendan then admitted that he would have been annoyed at what transpired if he was Shayne’s professional dance partner Nancy Xu. He continued: “If I was Nancy, I would have watched Wynne and Katya and thought, ‘As they’re pretty much dancing in and out of time, this is a shoe in’. Then, obviously Craig and Motsi both saved Shayne so she’d have been thinking, ‘I’m going to Blackpool, thank you very much’.

“All of a sudden, Anton chose Wynne and Katya, and then Shirley chose the others, and it’s good night. I’d have been annoyed.” It comes after Nancy’s emotions were at an all-time high on Monday’s instalment of It Takes Two.

As Nancy and Shayne they were shown a compilation of their time together during the show, Nancy was visibly emotional. Tearing up at the sweet montage, Nancy grabbed a box of tissues and started to dab her eyes.

Nancy was visibly emotional on Take Two ( 
Image:
BBC)
She jokingly wiped Shayne’s eyes although he wasn’t crying. Speaking about their exit, Nancy said: “This year, I’ve found all the contestants, between all of them, they have a really strong connection. Friendship and they supported each other week by week and day by day. So I can’t describe the feeling but I was gutted.” As Shayne and Nancy gave each other a huge hug, he spoke about his time on the show.

He told Fleur: “I think just watching that, I’m going to miss it. I’m going to miss Nancy so much. It’s amazing just to see how far we’ve come together and how she was able to turn these two left feet into one left and one right!”

At the weekend, Shayne and Nancy were in the dance-off for a third time and found themselves at the bottom of the leaderboard with a score of 30. They were up against Wynne Evans and Katya Jones, who had been given a total of 32 for their performance.