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Strictly Come Dancing's Giovanni Pernice and Richie Anderson were the surprise pair to leave the BBC show on Sunday after losing their dance-off to Fleur East and Vito Coppola. In their exit
interview on It Takes Two, professional dancer Giovanni was measured when it came to evaluating his partner's energetic performances.
When speaking to It Takes Two host Rylan Clark, Strictly's 2021 winner Giovanni looked back on his exit from the competition.
Rylan asked: "On a serious note what did you make on Richies performance?", to which Gioavanni took a moment before responding.
He replied: "‘It was fun, the whole concept was fun, dancing to Hakuna Matata, dressed like that, we did it for the kids.
"The technical bits were there, overall it was a good performance.’"
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On the Strictly spin-off show, Giovanni reflected on the emotions of being in the bottom two.
He added: "It’s not a nice position to be in, but in general, this competition, everyone is amazing this year.
"Fleur is fantastic, as is Vito, you don’t want to be in that position no matter who with. Unfortunately we had a Samba, and they did a fantastic dance.
"I wouldn’t have wanted to be a judge in that position, it was difficult."
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Richie was keen to express his gratitude for appearing on the dance show, telling Rylan: "It was incredible, as a Strictly fan to open movie week it was such an honour."
"We were dancing in front of the judges, I had my tassels on, I got to do a Samba, Craig got to smile, I loved it!"
During their chat with Rylan, Richie was visibly emotional looking back on his time on the Saturday night prime time show.
Through tears, Richie declared: "I'm just so proud... I've had the best time, and I am just so proud."
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Gio intervened: "And you should see the effort that he put in the room every day as well.
"You know, he really wanted to get it right, and as I said before, I'm glad you got to do this experience, and you know, maybe come back for a Christmas special at some point. Why not?"
The conclusion of Sunday night's results show caused uproar among some fans.
Head judge Shirley Ballas was the victim of a lot of fans' anger after she admitted she disagreed with the fellow panellists' decision.
After her fellow judges had decided to save Fleur, Shirley revealed she would have save Richie instead.
To her 79,000 Instagram followers, Shirley shared some of the vile messages, writing: "Here we are again how sad."
Will Mellor is the current bookies favourite to lift the Glitterball trophy this year.
Strictly Come Dancing - It Takes Two airs weekdays from 6.30pm on BBC Two.
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