SHIRLEY Ballas has hit back at Strictly Come Dancing fix claims over stars with performance backgrounds.
The BBC ballroom show became embroiled in controversy before this year's series – after signing up West End theatre star Layton Williams, Waterloo Road's Adam Thomas and EastEnders alum Nigel Harman.
Additionally, Angela Scanlon has also caused a stir after her dance training past came to light.
But head judge Shirley, 62, has thrown cold water over the furore, insisting those with a dance or stage school background still have some learning to.
She told The Mirror, "If somebody goes to stage school for singing and acting, there's always normally a little bit of dance included.
"If you take a jazz dancer, they dance on their own, they do their thing, unless they're in a group.
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"You take ballroom dancing, you really have to learn to dance with a partner – that's four arms, four legs, two heads, two quarters… you've got to be intertwined and working together."
Back in 2001, Angela was a trained dancer with the O'Shea Irish Dance Company.
It saw her performing professionally before she became a household name thanks to her TV work.
Angela even landed a role as a dancer in a US show. She performed in the Irish Thunder dance show as Busch Gardens Williamsburg in Virginia.
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Adam's wife Caroline is trained dancer and even runs her own dance school, ABCD Dance in Altrincham, Greater Manchester.
And Nigel's dance experience in 2014's I Can't Sing! The X Factor Musical recently came to light.
However, an inside source said: “There is no rule that celebrities cannot have dance experience before taking part and it would be near impossible to find a cast of 15 celebrities who have no previous dance experience as many people in the entertainment industry go to stage school.
"They have never been trained in Ballroom or Latin and have not tried to hide their dancing experience, but it is not remotely similar to what they will be required to learn for the show.”
The talent show has been known to come under fire from viewers in the past over stars who have had previous dance training.
Eddie Kadi, Amanda Abbington, Krishnan Guru-Murthy, Angela Rippon, Jody Cundy, Annabel Croft and Zara McDermott also make up the 2023 line-up.
The TV favourite – hosted by Claudia Winkleman and Tess Daly – will run for 13 weeks and finish on Saturday December 16.
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