King is eliminated from Strictly

Mollie King has thanked her dance partner AJ Pritchard for getting her to the semi-final as she became the 11th celebrity to be eliminated from Strictly Come Dancing.

The Saturdays star narrowly missed out on a place in the final after losing the dance-off to Gemma Atkinson.

King, 30, had come at the bottom of the leaderboard on Saturday night after failing to impress the judges with her samba, despite having gained her highest score of the series so far for her other dance, a waltz.

King and Pritchard took to the dancefloor again, repeating their waltz to Sarah Mclachlan’s Angel, while Atkinson and Aljaz Skorjanec performed their tango to The Knack’s My Sharona.

The judges voted unanimously to save Atkinson, meaning King’s time in the competition came to an end.

King told Strictly presenter Tess Daly that Atkinson and Skorjanec “totally deserved” their place in the show as they had “danced their socks off ”. She said: “It has been the most incredible experience and I feel so grateful to have got to the semi-finals, it has literally been the most fun I could ever have had.”