BBC Strictly Come Dancing star Balvinder Sopal has opened up on her fears about the public’s perception of her
Strictly’s Balvinder Sopal has revealed how she felt “crushed” with disappointment after subsequently finding herself in the bottom two for the second consecutive week.
“I’ve had meltdowns and things. And I’m like, ‘holy hell. I’ve been lying about being optimistic.’ I beat myself up, and I’m sometimes a little bit derogatory, but there’s no need to be that way. When you get on that floor, there is a fear of judgment and rejection. But what I have to remember is that I’ve put myself there.”
Despite achieving decent scores for each of her previous two performances, Balvinder hasn’t secured sufficient votes from home viewers to escape the dreaded dance off.
On both occasions she’s been rescued by the judges, with Ross King and subsequently Chris Robshaw eliminated instead.
Yet recalling the moment she discovered the devastating news for a second time, Balvinder reveals to the Mirror: “My heart just sank, I thought we’d done enough to come back from the week previous when we were, again, in the bottom two. I was crushed.”
Viewers are aware that if head judge Shirley Ballas still possessed the deciding vote, Balvinder would have departed, but she was saved by Craig Revel-Horwood.
“I’m so grateful to Craig and he’s one of the scariest judges, I think,” Balvinder says. “He saved us and I can’t thank him enough.”
However, the entire bruising ordeal means the soap star, 46, worries she’s proving far less beloved in reality than as her Albert Square character, Suki Panesar.
“Maybe they thought we were safe and so they didn’t vote for us,” she explains. “But every time Suki and [her Walford wife] Eve come on screen, my social media feeds go mad, message after message after message. So I’m like, ‘OK, what’s going on here? Surely you want to be supporting Suki?’ Maybe everybody doesn’t like Bal? I mean, who knows? But one thing is for sure, I don’t want to be in the dance off again.”
Balvinder’s confession comes as she’s been given bad news about her future on the show. However, she currently stands at the lowest odds of winning, and therefore a favourite to be out this weekend.
According to Betway, YouTuber George Clarke is a favourite to win, at odds of 5/2, followed by Lewis Cope and Vicky Pattison at 9/2 and 6/1 respectively. At the bottom end, both Harry Aikines-Aryeetey and Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink stand at 40/1, followed by La Voix at 50/1 and Balvinder at 100/1.