‘They’re not doing the job they’re hired for as judges’

Former Strictly pro Brendan Cole has slammed the judges’ scores last weekend following Lewis Cope’s shock exit.

The soap star became the latest star to get the boot from the show after Amber Davies beat him in the dance-off. And it’s fair to say Lewis’ exit left plenty of fans furious.

Now, Brendan Cole has shared his thoughts with ED! and slammed the judges “for not doing the job they’re hired for as judges”.
Brendan has shared his thoughts (Credit: ITV)

Strictly judges’ scores slammed by Brendan Cole

At the weekend Lewis and pro partner Katya Jones found themselves in the bottom two, alongside Amber Davies.  After performing their routines again, the judges decided to save Amber, sending Lewis and Katya home the week before the semi-finals.

Fans were both stunned and furious at Lewis’ elimination – and the decision to send him home didn’t go down well with a former Strictly pro dancer either.

On behalf of Sky Vegas, Brendan Cole has hit out at the judges for their marks on Saturday night.

When asked what lessons the producers can learn from the 2025 series, he said: “The producers need to decide whether they want the judges to be actual judges or entertainers dropping one-liners and marking on prettiness.”

‘Last two weeks of Strictly have been ruined’

Brendan continued: “In my opinion, as it stands, they’re not doing the job they’re hired for as judges, and the result is that the last two weeks of Strictly have been ruined.”

The dancer went on to say he thinks Amber won’t end up winning “because she’s gone from top of the leaderboard with a brilliant dance to the bottom two”.

Brendan added: “And Lewis, the person who should have won Strictly, is out before the semi-final. Meanwhile, you’ve got three other couples, two of whom aren’t actually good enough to be there.”

He went on to claim that the producers “have allowed that” to happen every week by “letting the judges mark as though it’s not a competition”.
Brendan spoke about Balvinder (Credit: BBC)

Balvinder ‘not in the same league’ as co-stars

Brendan then suggested: “One can not objectively look at the show on Saturday and say that they were all equal in quality and performance, yet that’s what the marks would suggest.”

Sitting pretty at the top of the leaderboard was Amber Davies and Nikita Kuzmin. The pair bagged 40 points for their Charleston.

Up next were EastEnders’ Balvinder Sopal and Julian Caillon, content creator George Clarke and partner Alexis Warr and Lewis Cope and Katya Jones, who all landed 35 points.

At the other end of the scale, Karen Carney and Carlos Gu were at the bottom with 34 points.

Slamming the judges’ scoring at the weekend, Brendan claimed that they are “not giving the correct marks to ensure a fair competition”. He also said that Balvinder Sopal is “not in the same league” as her co-stars and mused: “So why is she getting the same marks?”
He slammed the judges’ scores

Judges ‘only have themselves to blame’

He went on: “They only have themselves to blame when they sit there saying it’s a travesty. It’s their fault because they didn’t judge the night accordingly.

“You can’t give the same score to four out of five couples and then expect the leaderboard to make sense. There were definitely differences technically between the numbers if not difference in the performance.”

Talking more about Balvinder – who earned her highest score yet – Brendan quipped: “I honestly don’t know what the judges were doing [when they scored Balvinder’s number].”

He explained: “It was a lovely dance and very emotional, great for her. But the technique was a bag of spanners. What are they judging? That’s the question the show and the public should be asking.

“Lewis should be asking it too, because he’s the one who has been affected by the judges. He’s out and should have been fighting to win it.”

Read more: Emotional Katya Jones breaks down in tears as she addresses Strictly exit: ‘It’s tough’