Yvette Cooper MP, Balls’ wife, admitted that her husband was in “a bit of a state of shock & trauma” after watching his performance on the pre-recorded show.
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Last night’s show saw celebrities and dancers discover who they are paired with and the results didn’t leave viewers disappointed.
Other pairings on the launch show include Brendan Cole, a professional dancer on Strictly since the first series, waltzing away with U.S. singer Anastacia while Anton du Beke, who has also been there since the beginning, teamed up with Birds Of A Feather actress Lesley Joseph. I’m going to be dancing for him.
“It was pretty tough and thank God I had Lou”, she continued.
TV star Judge Rinder is with Oksana Platero and Olympic gymnast Claudia Fragapane with fellow new Strictly pro dancer AJ Pritchard.
The 14th series of the popular Saturday night show landed 10.1m viewers at its peak and and average of 9.3m.
The figures beat Strictly’s 8.7 million viewers in 2015, which pipped The X Factor to the top spot in last year’s ratings battle.
The 14th series of the ballroom dancing show, which beat The X Factor in the ratings a year ago, officially goes live in three weeks.
And it was Strictly who came out on top as the show received a million more viewers than The X Factor – despite the shows airing at different times in the evening.
ITV’s launch show last weekend was watched by 6.8 million (34% share) and peak of 7.5 million.
The two shows went head-to-head for the first time this year as Strictly debuted its red carpet launch while it was week two of the room auditions on its ITV rival.
ITV denied the The X Factor was suffering and said the episode’s figures are up year-on-year – the same episode last year was watched by 7.7 million.
However, the success of Strictly has been a double-edged sword for the BBC, leading to rows over whether the publicly funded broadcaster is stifling the competition.
However, The Great British Bake Off, which averaged 13.6 million viewers in its launch episode on 24 August, remains the most watched show this year.
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Louis Walsh, Sharon Osbourne and Nicole Scherzinger have joined Cowell on this year’s X Factor.
