Strictly Come Dancing's Jayde Adams clashes with ex-pro Joanne Clifton over show

"Maybe we should say positive things."

By Jacob Sarkisian

15 Dec 2022

strictly come dancing tess daly and claudia winkleman

BBC

Strictly Come Dancing's Jayde Adams has clashed with ex-pro Joanne Clifton over an argument Joanne wrote about this year's finalist Helen Skelton.

Joanne, who left the show as a professional dancer in 2016, wrote a column for the Daily Express in which she suggested that Helen's new-found confidence was key to her success on Strictly Come Dancing.

"This woman has been on a journey like no other. The comparison from the beginning until now is indescribable. The confidence from musicals week needs to stay," Joanne wrote in the article.

However, comedian Jayde, who was eliminated from this series in week five, took to Twitter to call out the article, believing it to be condescending towards the Countryfile presenter.

"Before #Strictly Helen was the 2nd woman only, to finish 78-mile Namibian ultra marathon 23h 45. Kayaked the Amazon, tightroped 150m over Battersea Power Station, cycled to the South Pole, TV, radio, sports career & had 3 babies one she birthed herself," Jayde wrote.

"Not confident? HAHAHAHA."

Getty Images

Joanne defended herself in her response to Jayde, arguing that what she said had been misinterpreted.

"Not sure about this comment. I’m quite OBVIOUSLY commenting on her confidence in Ballroom dancing, not her life," Joanne tweeted.

"Coz my article is OBVS about Strictly. Maybe we should say positive things, encourage them & celebrate them being Finalists instead of making something negative out of it?"

helen skelton and gorka marquez , strictly come dancing 2022

Guy LevyBBC

Jayde hasn't replied to Joanne's comment, although she did respond to some fans of the show who replied to her original tweet. She said that Helen had been "thriving" before Strictly and will continue to do so afterward.

The comedian also said: "No one ever talks about Hamza [Yassin]'s confidence."

Helen made it to this week's Strictly final after successfully getting through the semi-final stage, which saw Will Mellor and Nancy Xu get knocked out.

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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