Strictly’s Nina Wadia ‘gutted’ to be voted off show first: ‘I had so much more to give’

Actor joked she’d never dance again after being eliminated first

Nina Wadia has said that she was “gutted” after being the first contestant to be eliminated from Strictly Come Dancing this year.

The Goodness Gracious Me star competed in Strictly 2021 with partner Neil Jones and wowed the judges in week one with her samba.

However, her week two tango put her at the bottom end of the leaderboard, where she ended up facing off against Katie McGlynn in the dance-off.

Judges Craig Revel Horwood, Motsi Mabuse and Shirley Ballas all chose to save McGlynn and partner Gorka Marquez, while Anton Du Beke preferred Wadia and Jones’s performance.

Appearing on Strictly’s sister show It Takes Two on Monday (4 October), Wadia said that she was “gutted” to be the first celebrity kicked off the show.

“I had so much more to give and I wanted to spend so much more time with [Jones], more than my husband,” she joked, adding that she had been “disappointed” in herself with her tango.

“It’s just one of those things, it can happen to anyone,” Jones said. “It’s easy to just go wrong slightly, that happened. But she still did such a great performance.”

Asked by Rylan Clark-Neal whether she would continue dancing, Wadia said: “Never again. Never again,” before laughing.

Many fans were left disappointed by Wadia’s elimination from the show, with one Twitter user declaring that the actor had “been robbed” and put on a better performance than McGlynn in the dance-off.

Strictly Come Dancing continues Saturday 9 October at 6.45pm on BBC One.