On tonight’s Strictly Come Dancing, Wynne Evans and Katya Jones awkwardly acknowledged their ‘silly joke’.
On last week’s episode, in front of around six million fans, opera singer Wynne, 52, placed his hand on Katya’s waist and kept reaching it further around her midriff until she removed it with a smile on her face.
Viewers also noticed Wynne’s failed attempt at securing a high-top from his 35-year-old pro partner, to which she pulled a rather unimpressed face before turning to face the camera with a grin as if nothing had happened.
Given the fallout Strictly has faced this year with the investigation into Amanda Abbington’s formal complaints about Giovanni Pernice, as well as Graziano Di Prima leaving the show after confessing to kicking his celebrity partner, Zara McDermott, people are more poised than ever to look for any clues of discomfort or unhappiness.
However, both Wynne and Katya repeatedly denied that he engaged in any sort of ‘inappropriate’ behaviour or upset her at all. They also apologised for any offence it may have caused, but insisted it was an ‘inside joke’.
Putting the incident behind them, Wynne and Katya returned to the Strictly ballroom and performed a Quickstep to Mr. Blue Sky by Electric Light Orchestra.
Katya choreographed comical moments into their dance, with Wynne sitting on wet paint, getting toilet roll stuck to his foot and bird poo landing on his head (it was actually mayonnaise).
Before receiving the judges’ scores, Wynne and Katya held hands and put on a united front, as they gave Claudia Winkleman the lowdown on their dance choices.
‘This really suits your personality, doesn’t it? Timing, yes. But the comedy. Yeah, you love all the comedy,’ Katya said to Wynne.
With a smile on his face, Wynne responded: ‘Yeah, I love comedy.’ He then paused ever so slightly and raised his eyebrows before breaking into laughter as his Strictly co-stars and Claudia, 52, chuckled at him seemingly acknowledging last week’s awkward joke.
It’s likely they could survive to dance… and joke another week, as they scored an impressive 33, which landed them in fifth position. This puts them in a reasonably strong standing before the audience’s votes are cast, although close to the dangerous middle of the leaderboard.
Elsewhere in the episode, Pete Wicks and Jowita Przystal were scolded for including two ‘illegal’ lifts in their Rumba, and Chris McCausland had the nation crying.
Montell Douglas and Johannes Radebe, and Jamie Borthwick and Michelle Tsiakkas, finished at the top of the leaderboard with near-perfect scores of 39.
Last week, Katya and Wynne took to social media after the show with a video to deny any bad blood and try and nip things in the bud.
‘Hi, everyone. It’s Wynne and Katya here,’ they began, standing side-by-side still in their show costumes.
‘We just wanted to say we were just messing around in the Claudatorium on Saturday night and wanted to say sorry, it was a silly joke,’ Katya explained.
Wynne chimed in: ‘Yes, sorry!’
The singer then admitted on BBC Radio Wales on Monday that he was ‘heartbroken’ over speculation about his behaviour, which had been ‘totally misinterpreted’.
‘I’m absolutely heartbroken by the things that have been written about me in the last day.
‘It’s not nice to live in that time, but basically Katya and I are really, really close and we’re really good friends, and on Saturday night we made a stupid joke. It was a stupid joke that went wrong, okay, we thought it was funny. It wasn’t funny. It has been totally misinterpreted.’
He urged people to look at Katya’s own response on her social media, noting ‘she wasn’t offended in the least’ and ‘doesn’t feel uncomfortable’.
‘We’ve got a brilliant friendship, an absolutely tight friendship, and I’m sorry if anybody was offended by it, but it was a joke and yeah, that’s all there is, there is no real story, really,’ he added.
‘And I feel weird apologising because I feel like I’ve not really done anything.’
Wynne agreed he had ‘misjudged it’, when interviewed on Radio Wales Breakfast before starting his own show on the station, and confirmed he was ‘absolutely still up for’ Strictly.
When he and Katya later appeared on Strictly’s companion show It Takes Two, she also described it as ‘total nonsense’ as she leapt to her partner’s defence at the beginning of their interview together.
She also said she was devastated to be ‘sitting here watching this man being portrayed as someone he’s not’.
Nevertheless, Wynne has now fallen out of favour with bookmakers. After riding high as one of the favourites to clinch first place, after a series of well-marked and enjoyable routines, he’s fallen down the rankings.
Before he performed, only Morning Live doctor Punam Krishnan and footballer Paul Merson had worse odds.
Former Strictly star Ola Jordan also voiced similar concerns over Wynne and Katya’s fate in the competition.
‘It’s a tricky one because I would never think they would be in the bottom two, but, after the incident that’s gone on this week, maybe he’s at risk this weekend.
‘The public don’t like to be messed about. If they think something is going on, they’re just not going to like it, and they won’t vote for them,’ she told Mecca Bingo.
However, she voiced her hope that they won’t, calling them ‘a good couple’ who are ‘doing well’.
‘I really like the Tango they did last week, so it would be a shame if they are in the bottom two,’ she added.
Strictly Come Dancing continues tonight at 6.25pm on BBC One.
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