Strictly Come Dancing presenter Tess Daly has sparked a debate on social media over her unusual clap.
The 55-year-old star, who co-hosts the BBC’s Latin and ballroom competition alongside The Traitors’ Claudia Winkleman, was introducing JLS singer JB Gill for the dance-off during Sunday night’s result show when an eagle eyed viewer couldn’t help but notice something.
As the audience started to applaud, Claudia and Tess joined in, but the latter was actually making a very exaggerated movement and miming her clapping.
X user @JonnyBWoode was baffled by the curious display, and shared a clip on social media, writing: ‘So…Tess Daly can’t CLAP?!?! #Strictly’
Plenty of other viewers laughed at the odd moment, as @SamCaton suggested Harry Hill would have had a field day with the clip, as they replied: ‘This would have gone triple platinum on tv burp.’
However, many more pointed out that there might actually be a surprisingly simple explanation for the applause.
‘You’d hear her clapping over the crowd as her mic is right there. Audio would probably sound bad,’ wrote @connjam.
And @YCCC33 added: ‘It’s what they do on TV. Remember reading something from Susie Dent (I think) a couple of years ago that they do ‘fake’ clapping on Countdown as it would mess up the audio, and instead just add the applause electronically (obviously at Strictly you have the audience for that)’
That seems reasonable enough, although the original poster wasn’t entirely convinced.
He said: ‘It’s not that she’s not clapping, it’s the fact she doesn’t even do it believably. And it would have looked less weird not to have clapped at all!’
Everyone was shocked to see JB in the dance-off over the weekend, as he and Amy Dowden faced Paul Merson and Karen Hauer to stay in the competition.
They had found themselves in the middle of the leaderboard after their Jive to Outkast’s classic Hey Ya!, but they were saved after the judges all voted to save JB.
Despite backing JB, Shirley Ballas noted there were some mistakes, while Anton Du Beke was critical of his dance-off, insisting the decision wasn’t as ‘easy’ as it should have been.
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