Former Strictly Come Dancing professional James Jordan has exclusively revealed what he believes should be changed on the long-running show.
The BBC series has been swamped this year, in particular, with “fix” claims due to some celebrity contestants having past dance training.
While the topic comes to the surface each year, the 2025 series has seen criticism over the historic dance experience of both actress Amber Davies and soap star Lewis Cope.
Speaking exclusively to GB News in his new role as entertainment betting expert at Freebets.com, the home of the best betting sites, Mr Jordan, who starred in the show from 2006 to 2013, has suggested a change to the format.
He also admitted he finds the judges – Motsi Mabuse, Shirley Ballas, Craig Revel Horwood and Anton Du Beke – often over or under-mark.
“I felt last week in particular there was a lot of over-marking, but I think it was across the board, so it wasn’t one person in particular, but I did feel there was a lot of over-marking.
“And funnily enough, most of my scores that I give – because I always give my scores before I see the judges, because I want to know that I’m giving my honest opinion – and I would say I’m probably closest to Craig on nearly everything.
“But there were… For me, the person who got the most over-marked last week was Julian [Caillon] and Balvinder [Sopal]. I mean, Craig, unusually, gave more than Shirley and Anton. Yeah, it went 7, 7, 6, 6… I would have given her four.
“I didn’t think it was good. My gut feeling was right because they ended up in the bottom two. Which is a shame, because I think she had such a great first week with her Charleston.
“And the public has been watching the show for over 20 years, so they know what they’re looking at, and that’s why.”
On what he would like to change about the popular show, which debuted in 2004, Mr Jordan summarised: “I mean, the sad thing is, you’re going to see all the non-dancers going.
“Most of the non-dancers disappear first. All the ones that are fully-trained, even if they end up in the bottom two, they’re going to be saved.
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“But that’s the only part of the show for me that needs to be looked at. Do they need to have some kind of handicap system where, like in golf, you have a handicap where you can play against other golfers that are much better than you, but you still have a chance of beating them?”
On the fix row claims, he added: “I do talk about it a lot. And listen, I’ve danced with people who’ve had dance training as well, like when I danced with Denise Van Outen.
“Every year, there have been people with dance training, but I just feel now it’s more prevalent than it ever was back in our day.
“People go, ‘Oh yeah, well, I want to watch the great dancing,’ so then watch professionals dance. Because essentially, sometimes that’s what I feel I’m watching.
“Some of the people on the show this year have got different dance background training to what we do, and I’m on tour with four other professional dancers, and we all watch Strictly, and we’re watching it going, ‘We couldn’t do that.’
“That kind of shows you the level of dancing you have on there now, where five professional dancers are sitting in a room watching the show going, ‘None of us could do what he just did.’
“Don’t get me wrong. I love, love, love, love, watching the show. I think it’s a brilliant, brilliant show.
“I’m not bitter about not being on the show, I love watching the show – but I still feel that there’s nothing wrong with critiquing it as well.”
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