Ed Balls has admitted Katya Jones’ Strictly Come Dancing coaching is ‘brutal,’ as he addressed the moment she appeared to have quite the tense talk with Tony Adams on this week’s show.
The former politician famously appeared on Strictly in 2016, ensuring that his dance to Gangnam Style would be embedded into the public consciousness forever more.
Speaking on Good Morning Britain about the moment when his former partner seemed to have a few words with her current celeb, Arsenal legend Tony Adams, Ed diplomatically reflected: ‘I think that was Katya doing Katya-style coaching, which in my experience, can be brutal.
‘She’s really tough. She’s a world champion.’
Susanna suggested that Katya and Tony were ‘all sweetness and light’ at the end of the episode, with Ed responding: ‘That’s because she turned to the camera and started to smile. Before that, she’d be saying: “What are you doing? What are you doing?! Tony?! Focus!”‘
Ed added: ‘There was one moment when were practising the Jive, she was so brutal to me I had to go and stand in the kitchen for five minutes while Neil [Jones] said to her, “Katya, he’s only got so much bounce.”‘
Susanna went on to stick up for Katya, arguing that Ed likely did ‘have more bounce’ left in him.
Despite recent improvements, Tony performed a disappointing Salsa on last week’s Strictly, which saw him score 21 points and place at the bottom of the leaderboard following a series of mistakes.
As co-hosts Claudia Winkleman and Tess Daly came together to end the show, with the couples still in the competition paired up behind them and swaying to the music as is usual, Tony and Katya could be seen having an intense conversation in the background.
Gesturing with his hands and then shrugging as Katya nodded, the couple then quickly assumed a dancing stance with their arms around one another as the Russian dancer smiled while retired athlete Tony still looked a little disheartened.
Despite their lively routine to I Know You Want Me (Calle Ocho) by Pitbull going down a treat with the studio audience – and including some impressive lifts – the couple were both visibly upset by how their dance went.
As they shared a hug at the end, Katya could be heard saying ‘it’s okay’ as Tony apologised.
The 56-year-old then held his head in his hands as they judges began their critiques, clearly frustrated with what had happened.
Anton Du Beke joked that he would usually ‘give a 15 if I could’, adding: ‘But you went a bit wrong, so it might not be 15 today – but good effort, nonetheless! Well done.’
‘You gave it a good go, but no darling, it didn’t work tonight – sorry,’ said Craig Revel Horwood.
Motsi Mabuse and Shirley Ballas tried to keep their comments encouraging.
‘Stuff goes wrong in life and then we pick up our crown and we go out there and we salsa it out!’ Motsi declared.
Head judge Shirley then praised his partnering skills, his sense of line and said he was ‘fearless’, saying it was ‘an absolute shame you got on the wrong foot’.
‘You made too many mistakes, they were one after the other,’ she observed.
As Claudia tried to cheer them up afterwards, Tony quipped: ‘I was too busy having fun Claudia! The crowd was up, I was like, “Yeah, great!” and then I looked [at my feet] and went, “Oh sugar, what’s going on down there!”’
Katya then revealed that she had shouted ‘Focus!’ at him to get him back concentrating on just their routine before lamenting that he could ‘do it so well’.
Good Morning Britain airs weekdays at 6am on ITV. Strictly Come Dancing returns Saturday at 6:55pm on BBC One.
