Welsh opera singer Wynne Evans has said he is “heartbroken” over suggestions he made his professional dance partner Katya Jones “uncomfortable” during Saturday night’s Strictly Come Dancing.
Evans, 52, was captured on film sliding his hand around Jones’s waist before she promptly pushed it away.
The moment happened while presenter Claudia Winkleman revealed that Strictly voting lines were open for viewers to call, and quickly went viral.
A second clip of the pair showing Evans – who is famous for his role in GoCompare insurance adverts – trying to high-five Jones and getting rejected, was also widely shared on social media.
Speaking about the viral moments on Monday on BBC Radio Wales, where he presents a show, Evans said: “I’m absolutely heartbroken by the things that have been written about me in the last day.
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“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, OK? We thought it was funny. It wasn’t funny. It has been totally misinterpreted.”
He went on: “Everything’s on Katya’s socials. She’s talked about it. She’s explained that it was a joke. She wasn’t offended in the least. She 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 that’s all there is. There is no real story, really.
“I feel weird apologising because I feel like I’ve not really done anything.”
He agreed he’d “misjudged” the situation but was “absolutely still up for” competing on the show.
Pic:BBC
After the pair began trending on social media at the weekend, they posted a video together calling the high-five incident a “silly joke”.
Jones, 35, later responded directly to the clip of her moving Evans’s hand away from the middle of her waist, calling it “a very silly, very silly – inside joke”.
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She said the idea it made her uncomfortable or offended was “complete nonsense” and “quite absurd”.
A member of the Strictly welfare team is understood to have checked in on the pair, with no further action planned.
Pic: BBC/PA
The couple danced the tango to ABBA’s Money, Money, Money during Saturday night’s show, achieving their highest score to date, 34 points.
This season marks Strictly’s 20th anniversary with a new cast of celebrities and some changes, including the presence of chaperones “at all times” during rehearsals, following a number of accusations of bullying on the show.
Earlier this month the BBC apologised to former Strictly contestant Amanda Abbington, after they “upheld some, but not all” of her complaints about professional dancer Giovanni Pernice’s behaviour during her time on Strictly.
Sky News has reached out to the BBC, and representatives for Evans and Jones for comment.