Fans expressed their annoyance to Joe Duffy on Liveline on Monday morning after last weekend's show
Pageant queen Aishah Akorede has brushed off conspiracy theories that Dancing With The Stars is rigged in a bid to keep celebrity chef Kevin Dundon in the competition.
Dancing With The Stars viewers were left enraged last Sunday night when Aishah and Yasmin Seky ended up in the bottom two, with the judges being forced to send Yasmin and Simone Arena home after the dance off. Fans expressed their annoyance to Joe Duffy on Liveline on Monday morning about Kevin still being in the competition, despite being bottom of the leaderboard.
But defending Kevin, Aishah said he works just as hard as everyone else and takes the competition seriously – saying she thinks he is "brave". The former Miss Ireland model said: "I'm not online as much anymore because we're so busy rehearsing that I'm rarely on my phone, so I don't know what's going on.
"But in terms of anything to do with Kevin, I feel like a lot of people don't see... they see how he's smiling on TV, he's laughing about how, like, you know, his results and all.
"And I think it is a good way to go about it in terms of, to me, I think it's very brave for him to continue to just stand strong when he's working so hard behind the scenes.
"Like, if you see him in rehearsals, you know, this guy is working hard every week on every dance, like we are, like, he's the oldest in the competition right now, and he's working so hard, honestly, and for me as well, like, as someone who has sickle cell, and I work really hard to just try and make sure that I also am on the same level as the young people in the competition too.
"So if you saw how hard Kevin was working like I don't think anybody would have anything to say about him still being in the competition, because none of us are professional dancers, and we're all just trying to do our best, and that's all he's doing as well."
And the Dubliner said she doesn't think Kevin is a terrible dancer. "Oh my God, I don't think Kevin is a terrible dancer. I feel like he's working genuinely so hard. We are all people who have not danced or barely danced before, and we're all just learning how to do this.
"I guess that's a question for the structure of the leaderboard, because I'm not sure if you know how they choose. Obviously, it's the leaderboard from the top to the bottom, both to the leaderboard from the top to the bottom dances, and then whoever has the lowest scores who are going to be in the dance off.
"I assume I have the lowest scores in terms of public vote, and I assume Kevin has the highest scores in terms of so we must be doing something right for the public to be loving him that much."
This week, Aishah and her pro dance partner Robert Rowinski take on Orchestra night and the couple will be dancing an American Smooth to Vanessa Carlton's A Thousand Miles. Aishah hopes it won't be three in a row, and she will avoid the dance off this Sunday night.
She said: "I'm just looking at it with the fact that that's just the structure of the show, that if you're in the bottom two, you have to dance off. So I'm just like, 'Okay, I'll do what I'm told'. That's kind of how I'm looking at it, but obviously now I feel like the pressure of the dance off is kind of off me now, because I've experienced the pressure.
"The first time I was terrified to do it, the second time, if you actually see the difference in my face each time the second time, I was smiling the whole time, because I was just like, Yeah, okay, if we're in the dance off, I'm prepared for it. If we go home, at least I have two chances to, you know, try and stay in, but it is what it is at this point.
"But I am hoping that I'm not in a dance off again, like I do not want to be at that dance off again. But in terms of the pressure of it, so far, I'm the only one that's still in the competition who has done a dance off, and so I'm just hoping that I can use that to my advantage going forward," she added.
