Rachel in ‘fix’ swipe at bosses of Strictly
FORMER Strictly Come Dancing contestant Rachel Riley has claimed BBC bosses know who they want to win before each series of the show begins.
The Countdown star also told a magazine that programme executives ‘can obviously fix the scores’.
Miss Riley, 36, competed in the 11th series in 2013 and was paired with professional Pasha Kovalev, 42.
They were eliminated in the sixth week after losing a dance-off to eventual winners Abbey Clancy and Aljaz Skorjanec.
Miss Riley, who went on to marry Kovalev in 2019, told the Sunday Times Magazine: ‘I think they know from the start who they want to win and what journeys they want to take different people on, to have the right balance, and they can obviously fix the scores.’
She said the show was ‘very produced’, adding that Strictly viewers want contestants who are beginners – rather than celebrities who have had extensive dance training. ‘I think Brits want an underdog,’ she said.
‘We want to build someone up, not see someone who is good from the start – that’s not the heart of these programmes.’
However, the BBC strongly denied any suggestion of interference in the voting. It said: ‘This claim is categorically untrue. The BBC has strict procedures and editorial guidelines in place regarding impartiality and Strictly upholds all of these.’
Miss Riley was married to millionaire businessman Jamie Gilbert at the beginning of her run on Strictly. They announced their split shortly after she was voted off the show and she subsequently began dating Kovalev, but has denied she was a victim of the ‘Strictly curse’ on relationships.
‘If you have cracks [Strictly] can expose them,’ she said.
‘It gave me the distance to make the break that was going to happen anyway.’
She has previously revealed she suffered from a mild form of posttraumatic stress disorder after taking part and needed cognitive behavioural therapy.
She said: ‘It’s a really intense period. I had insecurities about my dancing because your whole self-worth is built around it. And you have this team mentality, then you’re suddenly dropped.
‘It still carries on but you’ve been put in the bin.
‘And you don’t do the exercise you were doing, so you have the loss of all the serotonin… When I was doing it, it was the best fun, then in the years that followed it was just… tricky.
‘A lot of people end up with some sort of mental misalignment.’