Strictly Come Dancing’s head judge Shirley Ballas made a major blunder on TV which left viewers in shock. The star appeared on Michael McIntyre’s The Wheel on Saturday evening but she got her specialist subject question wrong in a sensational fail.
A Glasgow man named Gordon was taking part in the BBC show when he was asked a question about dance which left everyone scratching their heads. Show host Michael delivered the question: “In tap dance, a ‘step, shuffle, jump’ is known as what?”
The four answer choices were A. Buffalo, B. Elephant, C. Penguin or D. Gazelle. The Scots dad struggled to come up with an answer but opted for C, which turned out to be wrong.
The studio turned red as it was revealed his guess was incorrect. Despite this, he still went on to secure a £31,000 jackpot win with the help of comedian Harriet Kemsley later in the show, the Mirror reports.
Gordon’s win left viewers teary-eyed as he revealed he was donating his winning to the Brain Tumour Charity after losing his daughter to the disease and the rest to funding a dream trip to Japan for his other daughter, who suffers with cystic fibrosis.
However, it appears Shirley would have been far less helpful than Harriet, after she was asked what the correct answer was for the term used in tap dance. In an awkward moment for the professional dancer, she picked the wrong one.
The answer turned out to be Buffalo but Shirley chose Gazelle.
She said: “I’ve got absolutely no idea, I picked gazelle. All elegance and beautiful.”
Fans of the show agreed that the question was incredibly tough but others criticised Shirley for getting it wrong despite her spending years as Strictly’s head judge.
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Taking to X to discuss the blunder, one wrote: “How embarrassing that Shirley Bllas doesn’t know what [the answer is].”
As a second chimed in: “Thought the tap dance question would be penguin purely on the basis of how the main character in Happy Feet tap dances.”
However, one person clarified why the answer was Buffalo, saying: “I’m sure thousands of others are tweeting too – it’s called a Buffalo as the steps make the sound of the railroad to Buffalo!”
This comes as Shirley delivered a scathing assessment of one former professional dancer who she believes had his eyes set on her Strictly role.
Shirley, 65, was awarded the prestigious head judge position, taking over from the departing Len Goodman, in 2017 following a rigorous selection process.
In her autobiography, Best Foot Forward, Shirley revealed how New Zealand dancer Brendan Cole had “expressed some scepticism” about her capabilities before she succeeded Len.
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Shirley wrote: “When [It Takes Two] host Zoe Ball asked him if all the pros were going to be ‘desperate to impress’ me, he pompously fired back that it was me who should be looking to impress them because they’d all been there much longer.
“That set the tone, and he paved the way to disaster from there.”
Shirley believes Brendan had also put his name forward for Len’s position and that his harsh comments reflected his resentment over not being selected.
