Strictly JJ gets his marching orders
Former Marine and friend of Prince Harry misses out on semi-final spot after judge Shirley chooses Jamie
FORMER Royal Marine JJ Chalmers was given his marching orders last night as he was denied a place i n the Strictly semi-final.
Head judge Shirley Ballas decided to save Made In Chelsea star Jamie Laing for the second week in a row, making Chalmers the sixth celebrity to leave the show.
Chalmers, 33, and his partner Amy Dowden, had finished bottom of the table on Saturday, scoring 20 points for their Charleston to the Chitty Chitty Bang Bang theme tune.
The routine for musicals week failed to win over the judges – with Craig Revel Horwood deeming it ‘too stop and start’ – and it ultimately failed to inspire the public too.
Despite calling him a ‘beautiful ballroom dancer’, head judge Miss Ballas, who was given the job of casting the deciding vote, opted to save Laing and his partner Karen Hauer. They had impressed with their jive to Everybody’s Talking About Jamie, the title tune from the West End show.
Chalmers, a friend of Prince Harry, was severely injured by a bomb blast in 2011 while serving in Afghanistan.
The Scot, from Dunfermline, Fife, was part of the UK team at Harry’s inaugural Invictus Games for injured servicemen in London in 2014, when he won medals in cycling.
He said he felt ‘unbelievably proud’ to have come so far in the competition and he praised
Welsh professional Miss Dowden for ‘the way you’ve built me up’.
‘I’ve gotten half decent maybe at something which I had no clue about to begin with and I’ve enjoyed every second of it,’ he said.
‘It’s just a privilege to be in this long. I mean this competition is insane. To be counted among that cast at this stage in particular means the world to me. It’s meant everything.
‘It’s been an unbelievable challenge, well outside my comfort zone but I’ve had this one to just keep me in it and I can’t quite express what she means to me.’
Miss Dowden described teaching Chalmers as an ‘absolute honour’, adding: ‘I honestly believe from working with JJ over the last few months I’ve become a better person and I’ve learned so much.’
Singer HRVY and Janette Manrara topped the table f or the second week with their American smooth to One from A Chorus Line, scoring 29 points.
Judge Motsi Mabuse hailed it as ‘the dance of the season, the dance of the decade’.
Musicals impresario Sir Andrew Lloyd Webb er appeared to hail the show as a ‘tonic for the nation’ after a year in which the pandemic has closed stage shows and threatened countless careers in the performing arts.
‘Well outside my comfort zone’