Former Strictly pro James Jordan has defended Amber Davies after she ended up in the bottom two and explained why the whole thing was “unfair” for the West End star.
18:52, 10 Dec 2025
James Jordan has blasted the judges’ scoring on Strictly Come Dancing(Image: Rex)
James Jordan has defended Amber Davies after she managed to make it through to the semi-final of Strictly Come Dancing. The TV star 47, who previously served as a professional on the BBC Saturday night favourite, “wasn’t shocked” to see the West End actress land in the bottom two last week despite her perfect score of 40, but has explained why none of it was “fair” to begin with.
Amber and her professional partner Nikita Kuzmin topped the leaderboard but had to fight for her place in the competition against Emmerdale’s Lewis Cope and Katya Jones, who had tied with EastEnders’ Balvinder Sopal and YouTuber George Clarke after they each scored 35, whilst Lioness Karen Carney came in fifth with 34.
Speaking exclusively with Freebets.com, the home of new casino sites, where he works as the entertainment betting expert, James told The Mirror: “We got home and hadn’t seen the show, but we got back just as the show ended. So at that point, no one knew what the result was because it would have been going on at that point. But I did see the leaderboard. And when I saw the leaderboard, myself and [my wife] Ola looked at each other and said, ‘What a f****** mess that is!’ Just from looking at the leaderboard. I actually was quite annoyed about it and kind of felt it was coming.
READ MORE: Strictly Come Dancing’s Amber Davies addresses her worried fansREAD MORE: Strictly Come Dancing’s Shirley Ballas lays feelings bare after Lewis Cope’s shock axeAmber and Lewis had to compete in the dance-off last week even though they were the ‘top two dancers’ in the show (Image: PA)
“So I knew something bad was gonna happen because having three ties on the leaderboard in the middle, so you’ve got five people, the three in the middle are tied. That meant Amber only had to drop one place to end up in the bottom two, which shouldn’t be the case! In any normal dance competition, you don’t have ‘In first place, we have Amber and Nikita and in second place, we have three couples all tied on the same score.
“It doesn’t happen! You have first, second, third, fourth, fifth. I I know that people could say it’s just an entertainment show, it really doesn’t matter, and it causes a bit of jeopardy, and it’s good that things like that can happen. That’s fine if you think that, but for me personally, it’s not fair.”
The former Love Island winner has built up an impressive career in theatre since she shot to fame in 2017, but James insisted that Amber doesn’t deserve any of the “horrendous” backlash she has received, and when it comes to why she and Lewis ended up in bottom two, he claimed that the blame lies with judges Shirley Ballas, Craig Revel Horwood, Anton Du Beke and Motsi Mabuse.
He said: “It’s not her fault. I know she’s getting a lot of grief and trolled on social media about it, which I think is horrendous, because who wouldn’t sign up to Strictly? It’s one of the best TV shows in the world. And it’s not her fault that she’s been asked to do it. She’s just doing the best she can and probably working as hard as if not harder than everyone else, as was Lewis.
“The fact that the top two dancers have ended up in the bottom two, the only reason they ended up in the bottom two is because the judges got the leaderboard wrong. It’s not even up for debate. The leaderboard was wrong. Those three couples were not of equal standard. It was very clear if you ask any trained professional ballroom Latin dancer in the world, they would rank them the same as I would. It would be Amber and Nikita first. It would be Lewis and Katya second. It would be George and Alexis third. It would be Balvinder and Julian fourth and Karen and Carlos in fifth.
James insisted that Amber is ‘clearly the best’ in the competition but doesn’t think she will win and begged social media users to stop trolling her (Image: Guy Levy/BBC/PA)
“That isn’t up for debate.. I’m 47. I’ve been dancing since I was nine years old. In all major competitions around the world. And I’m telling you categorically that that is how the leaderboard should have been. To have three ties on the leaderboard was just nonsensical!
“Amber’s getting so much grief on social media. Yes, she’s a trained dancer, and you could argue, and I kind of agree. I don’t think the premise of Strictly is about having fully trained dancers on Strictly. I personally prefer would prefer watching people maybe with a little bit of dance training. Of course, you can’t get away from that fact, but having someone that’s a fully trained dancer kind of defeats the object of the show.
“But it’s not her fault. So don’t don’t troll her. Don’t be horrible to the poor girl. She’s doing the best she can, and she’s producing amazing dancing week on week. And it still has to be fair. And I don’t think it was fair on her or Lewis, to be honest.”
James then predicted that Amber would make the final on talent alone, and even though he doesn’t think the public will back her to win the Glitterball Trophy, did point out that Karen is also a trained dancer and hasn’t received the same sort of backlash as her co-star.
He added: “I personally am championing George to win. Of course, clearly Amber is the best, and I think she deserves to be the final. There’s no one in the competition that can beat her if she was in a dance off anyway, unless she had an absolute disaster. So she’s gonna be in the final. You need her in the final. But it’s totally down to the public and I don’t think she’s gonna win. Well, it’s proved that last week she had to have the lowest public vote to end up in the bottom two from top of the leaderboard. Everyone had to have had more public vote than her, bar Lewis, but I’m sure he had more public vote than her as well.
“Amber has to be in the final. She has to be. I I think it’s super, super unlikely she won’t be in the final because she’s too good. If she ended up in the dance off she’d win. I don’t believe she’s gonna win the show because she’s had so much backlash. More than anyone else. Karen is a fully trained dancer as well, but she seems to have slipped under the radar a bit in comparison to Lewis and Amber.”
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