BBC Strictly Come Dancing's Shirley Ballas shuts down 'awful messages' as she leaves country

Shirley Ballas has once again shut down the 'awful messages' she received in the wake of the latest Strictly Come Dancing exit.

The head judge came under fire after her vote sealed the fate of Shayne Ward and Nancy Xu in the BBC One dance contest. The singer and actor and his professional dance partner became the seventh couple to leave after landing in the dance-off for the third time last weekend.

They had earlier returned to the ballroom for week eight of Strictly's 2024 run with the notoriously difficult rumba, which they performed to Time After Time by Cyndi Lauper on Saturday night (November 9) before ending up in the bottom two where they went up against fellow couple Wynne Evans and Katya Jones during the seventh results show of Strictly's 20th-anniversary series.

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After both couples had danced a second time, the judges delivered their verdicts: Craig Revel Horwood chose to save Shayne and Nancy, as did Motsi, while Anton Du Beke chose to save Wynne and Katya. With two votes in favour of Shayne and Nancy, the decision came down to head judge Shirley, who decided to save Wynne and Katya.

Following the results, some Strictly fans flocked to social media to demand a change to the voting system, meaning that when it's a tie it reverts back to the public vote rather than Shirley being the decision maker.

While she has already responded to the backlash by suggesting she could leave her position as head judge behind, Shirley, 64, has decided to clap back at her online trolls, calling out "vitriol and awful messages" on her Instagram account as she briefly left the UK ahead of Strictly's Blackpool special this Saturday (November 16).

Sharing a video to her Instagram Story from Gibraltar, she said: "Hi everyone, I'm currently in Gibraltar for a couple of days, promoting my new book. I'm going to see the Rock of Gibraltar and all the monkeys, I'm excited about that.

"But I'm mainly on today because I wanted to thank you all for reaching out with your beautiful messages. For you know, for the handful of vitriol and awful messages I got, I got thousands of supporting messages and that really made my day. So I appreciate that. Anyway, I'm looking forward to Blackpool next week."

She continued: "I shall be doing a book event at the Winter Gardens on Friday and then we'll have the competition on Saturday in the Tower Ballroom. So I'm looking forward to meeting a lot of you outside that stand and want to say hello."

Shirley then ended her message: "But again, you know, hugs from me to you because you sure made me feel better this week. To each and every one of you that understand the show, I love you. Take care."