Craig Revel Horwood insists Strictly Come Dancing pros need to remain strict in the upcoming season of the BBC One show. The competition has come under fire ahead of its 20th anniversary as dancers Giovanni Pernice and Graziano Di Prima were both targeted with allegations of "abusive" behaviour backstage. While the latter has admitted to kicking former dance partner Zara McDermott once during a rehearsal, Giovanni has firmly denied all claims weighing against him and reports regarding his behaviour prompted the Beeb to launch an internal probe.
Despite this, Strictly judge Craig Revel Horwood believes that criticism is an important part of the journey to the Glitterball as he feared the show's upcoming season would be too "vanilla" without it. After offering a subtle sign of support to Giovanni, 33, Craig, 59, told The Sun : "I hope the standards don’t drop this year", before admitting: "When I’m teaching casts for shows in rehearsals, I still have to be quite strict. I think you have to be.
" He added: "Can you imagine an Olympian getting gold with his or her trainer not being strict? As far as saying, ‘Oh, that was really bad, you need to try it again’, I’m not going to cry over that." Craig insisted that anybody in the competition had "to be able to take some criticism." "You just have to be able to take some criticism.
Otherwise, we’re living in a world where no one is criticised, and it will become watered down and vanilla, where no one’s trying." Craig rece.