Layton Williams needs some alone time after making some terrible statements on Strictly Come Dancing last weekend.
Craig Revel Horwood stunned the country when he refused to award Layton and his partner Nikita Kuzmin a 10 for their pick on Saturday, citing time concerns.
This came after Layton and Nikita executed a fantastic pole routine to Christina Aguilera’s Ain’t No Other Man, which head judge Shirley Ballas labelled “creative genius.”
Viewers were outraged when Craig pointed out that Layton and Nikita weren’t ‘in sync’ 100% of the time, and even Layton needed to ‘have a quiet chat’ with himself after failing to get a perfect 40 for the third time this series.
Chatting about Craig’s remarks to Fleur East on It Takes Two on Monday, the Billy Elliot star said: ‘I, for sure, had a quiet word with myself to be like, oh, a little bit… but then, I though, we can’t be disappointed because we went out there and did the best that we possibly could.’
‘We’re still very grateful. It’s such a high score. 39 is almost perfect, you’re one score away from being perfect, so we’re still very grateful. We’re putting a lot of effort in and to receive such a high score is really lovely,’ Nikita added.
‘Of course, we’re gonna take the comments on board and shoot for that 40 one day, hopefully, it’ll come if we stick around, wink, wink!’, Layton joked.
‘But it gives us something to work forward to. There’s something about finishing a performance and going, do you know what? We really just did the best that we could on the night.’
‘At the end of the day, we are really proud of ourselves and everything we do,’ Nikita exclaimed.
‘As long as we are happy and people at home are happy to see what we do, that’s our job done.’
Over the weekend, the much-loved team had millions of fans fighting their battle, with social media contending that Craig seemed to have a grudge against Layton for constantly being ‘picky’ in his remarks.
One user remarked on X (previously Twitter): ‘Don’t know who peed in Craig’s cornflakes this morning’, while another said he is now simply ‘asking for too much’.
‘Craig hates Layton. There is no other explanation. That dance was SENSATIONAL!!!’, another penned.
In his original comments, Craig told Layton and Nikita – who were joint top of the leaderboard with Ellie Leach: ‘This is a little bit of a dilemma for me because I loved it, number one, but it wasn’t entirely in sync.’
The booing completely drowned out Craig, with even the other celebrities and their partners joining in.
He went on: ‘That being said, you are one of the most incredible dancers that I have seen on this show over the 20 years I’ve been doing it.’
No pair has scored 40 points this series, but might Layton and Nikita’s American smooth this weekend be the one?
We can hardly wait to find out…
Strictly Come Dancing airs Saturday and Sunday on BBC One and BBC iPlayer.
