Strictly star Millie ‘grateful’ for semi-final place after show exit
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.
Mollie, 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 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. Mollie told Strictly presenter Tess Daly that Atkinson and Skorjanec “totally deserved” their place in the show as they had “danced their socks off”.
Speaking after the show, 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.”
While not referring to the rumours of a romance between herself and 23-year-old Pritchard, Mollie said: “Spending all this time with AJ I feel so lucky. So just a huge thank you to everyone who has voted us through, and to AJ – he is an absolute legend.”
Atkinson will appear in the Strictly final along with Joe McFadden, Debbie McGee and Alexandra Burke.
The Strictly Come Dancing Grand Final airs at 6.30pm on Saturday on BBC One.