Strictly Come Dancing’s Jamie Borthwick couldn’t resist making a playful four-word comment to his dance partner Michelle Tsiakkas.
The EastEnders star, who clinched victory in last year’s Strictly Christmas special, debuted on the dance floor with Michelle on Saturday night.
Their Viennese Waltz to “Beautiful Things” by Benson Boone earned them a mid-table score of 23 points, placing them halfway up the leaderboard after the first show.
As they prepared for their second performance, Jamie and Michelle joined host Fleur East on the Strictly spin-off show, It Takes Two. Fleur was quick to bring up Jamie’s humorous remark about Michelle smelling of garlic during their Saturday performance.
This quip was picked up by a hidden microphone that captures the candid comments of the celebrities both on the dance floor and backstage, reports OK!.
Fleur teased: “Here at It Takes Two we like to listen in on your mic, I’m sorry we like to introduce.”
Before the clip rolled, Michelle reacted with an apprehensive “Oh gosh.” In the midst of their dance, Jamie was heard whispering: “You smell of garlic.”
The studio erupted into laughter as Fleur probed for details, prompting Michelle to say: “In the most romantic moment of the dance, he decides to tell me I smell like garlic.”
Jamie then clarified the situation: “Well we’ve had this thing during the week at rehearsal, it was an inside joke where we were eating garlic bread and stuff like that and we’ve been burping in each other’s faces all week.”
Michelle joked: “I’m going to get him back”. Fleur asked Jamie elsewhere in the show about the difference between competing in the Christmas special and the original version.
Jamie said that being on the BBC competition had left him feeling ‘humbled’. He added: “To be honest it’s nothing like it because me and Nancy had a bit of a jolly for a week and a half. We worked hard on our routine but we know it was light and just something for Christmas.”
He continued: “It was just different but now I’ve been humbled by Strictly, this has been a real experience, especially this week because we’ve had a week and with all the other stuff we have to do the VT’s and I’ve had a filming day this week – it’s all go.”
Strictly Come Dancing airs Saturdays and Sundays on BBC One