Strictly's Helen Skelton praises Gorka Márquez for helping her find confidence

"It’s about being confident in your own skin and who you are."

By Jacob Sarkisian

15 Dec 2022

helen skelton and gorka marquez , strictly come dancing 2022

Guy LevyBBC

Strictly Come Dancing finalist Helen Skelton has praised professional dance partner Gorka Márquez for helping her find her confidence.

Helen was speaking to Metro ahead of this weekend's final when she revealed that she believes she's "found confidence", and credits her dance partner for a portion of that.

In particular, she praised Gorka for helping her to unleash her "sassy" side in dance performances without, crucially, making it "about being sexy".

"It’s about being sassy and powerful and being in control. That’s a wonderful freeing thing for anybody, when they feel in control of their own selves and what they’re doing," Helen said.

"It’s about being confident in your own skin and who you are. The thing he kept saying to me in the beginning, which I didn’t get, was, 'Just own it' – 'I don’t know what you’re on about!' Now I get it."

She continued: "It’s been a wonderfully liberating thing to just be happy in your own skin."

strictly come dancing 2022 week 1 helen skelton and gorka marquez

Guy LevyBBC

Helen made it through to the Strictly final after successfully navigating through the semi-final stage, which saw Will Mellor and Nancy Xu exit after losing the dance-off.

Earlier this week, former Strictly professional dancer Joanne Clifton wrote an article stating that she felt Helen had found her confidence on the dance floor.

BBC

Joanne's article was then criticised on Twitter by Jayde Adams, who went out of this series in week 5.

Jayde said that Helen has always been confident in life, having accomplished a number of remarkable things, and added that "no one ever talks about Hamza [Yassin]'s confidence".

However, Joanne defended her article, tweeting: "Not sure about this comment. I’m quite OBVIOUSLY commenting on her confidence in Ballroom dancing, not her life."

Strictly Come Dancing's final airs on Saturday (December 17) at 7.05pm on BBC One, while spin-off show Strictly: It Takes Two airs on weeknights on BBC Two. Both shows also stream on BBC iPlayer.

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