‘Strictly Come Dancing’ ignored the Seann Walsh and Katya Jones romance scandal in tonight’s episode of the show – apart from one subtle reference from the hosts.
After introducing the judges at the beginning of the show, Tess Daly said: “For the last seven days, our couples have been eating, sleeping and breathing dance.’
“I’d say it’s been a quiet week,” she added, before Claudia Winkleman quipped: “Other than the odd headline.”
And then… well, that was pretty much it.
Their pre-dance VT made zero mention of the past week’s events, though fans did notice the unusual addition of “Charleston coach”, who appeared to have joined the pair for most of their rehearsals…
“It’s been quite a week but, tonight, it’s all about the dancing,” said Tess during her introduction of the pair, before they performed their Charleston to favourable feedback from the judges.
Fans had been speculating about how the audience would react to the pair but on the night, they received nothing but cheers from the 600 people watching in the studio.
Naturally, the whole thing dominated discussions on Twitter, with the pair’s names trending during the show:
The pair have been at the centre of a media storm this week after being filmed locking lips during a night out, despite both having partners.
Seann and Katya performed on the show despite calls for them to quit the competition in the wake of his now-ex girlfriend’s withering break-up statement, in which she called out his “inappropriate and hurtful” behaviour.
The duo appeared on spin-off show ‘It Takes Two’ earlier this week to publicly apologise for their kiss – but the bosses decided not to make any reference to the matter during Saturday’s live show.
During the brief interview, Seann told Zoe Ball he “deeply regretted” the kiss and was “obviously sorry for the hurt” he had caused.
“I would rather not be having to address this publicly, but I feel like I have to,” he said.
He added: “I feel it’s also important for me to say that the people that know me the most, that love me, they know that I am not the person I’m being portrayed as.
“I’m still sorry for what I did, but it’s very important for me to get that out there.”
Katya, who is married to fellow ‘Strictly’ professional Neil Jones, also insisted her relationship was “absolutely fine”.
After apologising, she said: “The main thing, me and Neil are absolutely fine and that’s what matters to me the most right now and focusing on my job and doing it as professionally as I can.”
Seann’s now-ex, Rebecca Humphries, was left mightily unimpressed at the interview, showing her upset by “liking” a number of disparaging tweets about his apology.
However, it looks like Seann and Katya’s days on the ‘Strictly’ dancefloor could be numbered anyway.
Bookies have named them the favourites to be eliminated from the competition during Sunday night’s results show.
He has odds of 11/8 to be next to leave with bookmakers William Hill.
The bookies’ spokesperson said: “The odds suggest that Seann will struggle to get enough votes to be out of the bottom two. After the week these two have had it will be hard to focus and we think their dancing will inevitably suffer.”
Saturday’s show saw them score 28 points for their Charleston to ‘Bills’ by Lunchmoney Lewis.
Elsewhere on the leaderboard is Stacey Dooley and Kevin Clifton at the top with Katie Piper and Gorka Marquez at the bottom.
‘Strictly Come Dancing’ continues on Sunday at 7.45pm on BBC One.
