Yahoo Movies Rose Ayling-Ellis Wows Strictly Judges With Never-Seen-Before Move As She Jointly Tops Leaderboard
Rose Ayling-Ellis stunned the Strictly Come Dancing judges as she performed a move never seen before on Saturday night.
The EastEnders star danced a Love Actually-inspired American Smooth to This Will Be An Everlasting Love by Natalie Cole during the live quarter final.
At one particular moment, Rose and partner Giovanni Pernice came out of hold and she ran at him and leapt in the air, for him to then catch her by the arms.
After the performance, co-host Tess Daly immediately said the show had “never seen” a lift like that before, to which Craig Revel Horwood said: “Absolutely amazing that lift. I thought the whole routine was absolutely gorgeous, wonderful storytelling.”
Shirley Ballas remarked: “You delivered a performance of a lifetime. There was a point in mid air where you were not touching each other, that is really a leap of faith.”
Co-host Claudia Winkleman reiterated how the move had not been done previously on the show calling her “brave”, before Giovanni admitted that he did “miss” catching her a couple of times during rehearsals.
The pair ended up scoring 39 points out of a possible 40, landing them in joint-first position on the leaderboard.
They shared the top spot with Rhys Stephenson and Nancy Xu, who wowed the judges with their Argentine Tango set to Phil Collins’ In The Air Tonight.
Having been in the dance-off last week, Shirley said: “I just want to hold you and say well done. You have been in the bottom several times and I think it has humbled you, every time you come back better.”
Craig added: “I thought you did a fantastic job I have to say.”
However, there were a couple of slip-ups during the evening, with both AJ Odudu and John Whaite coming unstuck with lifts during their performances.
AJ and her partner Kai Widdrington landed at the bottom of the leaderboard for their Salsa to Gloria Estefan’s Rhythm Is Gonna Get You with 30 points.
John and partner Johannes Radebe scored 32 for their Salsa set to Sister Sledge’s We Are Family.
Meanwhile, Dan Walker and Nadiya Bychkova sat between the pair with a score of 31 for their Argentine Tango to Santa Maria by Gotan Project.
Find out who is next to leave Strictly Come Dancing on Sunday night at 7.20pm on BBC One.
This article originally appeared on HuffPost UK and has been updated.
