Bethany Antonia and Nancy Xu were eliminated from Strictly Come Dancing on Sunday, 8 November, after head judge Shirley Ballas used her casting vote to send home the couple who had outscored their competitors the night before. The decision, which ended the show's first same-sex partnership in three years, triggered immediate outrage across social media.
According to Metro, the bottom two saw Bethany and Nancy face Cach Mercer and Maddie Ingoldsby. Bethany and Nancy had scored 30 points on Saturday against Cach and Maddie's 26, yet judges Anton Du Beke and Shirley Ballas both voted to save the lower-scoring pair, with Craig Revel Horwood and Motsi Mabuse backing Bethany and Nancy. Ballas, as head judge, held the deciding vote.
What happened in the dance-off
Both couples reprised their routines: Bethany and Nancy performed their foxtrot to Leona Lewis's Bleeding Love, while Cach and Maddie returned to their waltz to That Ain't You by Mulaa Joans. The split verdict meant the outcome rested entirely on Ballas's preference, and she chose Cach and Maddie.
Viewers did not take it quietly. On X, @chaesmarts asked, 'sorry how is this fair when Bethany had the better dance. Craig and motsi the only ones with sense', while @annoyingCD called Cach's routine 'full of technical flaws'. @RyanSoapKing25 said their 'heart breaks' for the eliminated couple, and @Jamoffical_ declared they 'didn't have a bad dance' all series. Others accused Ballas of 'favouritism', a charge that has shadowed the show's judging panel before. As Wales Online reported, the spoiler prompted a renewed row over whether fan favourites are routinely kept in over stronger dancers.
Why this elimination cuts deeper than a scoreboard
For many viewers, this was never just a points discrepancy. Bethany Antonia and Nancy Xu formed Strictly's first same-sex partnership in three years, a piece of representation that the show has treated, at best, as an intermittent experiment rather than a settled norm. Two same-sex pairings appeared in earlier series, then the format quietly reverted to exclusively mixed partnerships until this year. Representation that appears, disappears, and reappears at the discretion of producers is not representation; it is tokenism with a broadcast slot.
Bethany herself understood the weight of that. 'Just being here feels like we've already won,' she told Metro before the elimination. 'For me, this is the kind of representation that is so important and makes such a difference, and it's just being in the space.'
She added: 'Being in the space and not necessarily being there loudly is sometimes more effective and useful than making a big song and dance about it, literally, and to me, it feels like this is exactly what I wanted the process to be like.'
There is a quiet radicalism in that framing, but it should also make us uncomfortable. Why is the burden on LGBTQIA+ participants to be gracious, understated and 'cherished' in their visibility, while the institution around them remains unchanged? A same-sex couple can only ever be as safe as the structures deciding their fate. On Sunday, those structures, four judges, a casting vote, and a pre-recorded results show, decided that a higher-scoring same-sex partnership should go home.
The pre-recorded theatre of 'live' television
It is worth remembering that the results viewers watch on Sunday night are filmed the day before, as Express.co.uk noted in its coverage of the spoiler leak. The outrage that floods social media each weekend is therefore a reaction to a decision already sealed, performed back to the public as if it were unfolding in real time. This is not a scandal of one head judge's taste; it is a format that manufactures consent for outcomes the audience had no say in, then invites that audience to vent into the void.
The dance-off itself is a useful case study in how institutions launder preference into procedure. Judges do not have to justify their choices beyond a sentence or two. The casting vote concentrates power in one person. And when the outcome contradicts the visible evidence of the scoreboard, the response is always the same: it was the judges' decision, the format is the format. Structural opacity dressed up as entertainment.
Surviving three dance-offs, and what that says about the show
Bethany and Nancy reached the halfway point having already survived two dance-offs, more than any other couple this series. Nancy Xu, 35, praised her partner's 'strength' and 'growth' across the contest. Bethany, 28, told Metro the pair were 'hilariously offline' about online speculation over their future.
'It's painful,' she laughed. 'But in a really nice way, because it makes the process feel so much more intimate. When we finish, there'll be plenty of time to go back and read everything, but while we're in it, it's just about us in those 90 seconds of a routine, and it feels like something that needs to be cherished and kept close.'
Three dance-offs for the same-sex couple, while a lower-scoring couple reached the same weekend untouched by the bottom two, is a pattern worth naming. Public voting is where popularity, media narrative and prejudice intersect, and the show has never meaningfully interrogated how those forces distribute themselves across its couples. When Daily Star readers described themselves as 'gutted' at the spoiler, they were reacting to the result; the deeper question is who keeps ending up in the bottom two, and why.
Where Strictly goes from here
Nine couples remain in contention for the Glitter Ball, including Jaime Winstone, who missed Saturday's show through injury and is expected to return next weekend. Dani Dyer tops the leaderboard after scoring 36 for her American smooth, while Graeme Hall's tearful couple's choice divided opinion. Sunday's results show also featured a Remembrance Sunday group performance choreographed by Lizzie Gough, set to Peter Gabriel's arrangement of Heroes and inspired by The Monument to Women of World War II, alongside a musical number from Gregory Porter with Alexis Warr and Aljaž Škorjanec.
But the departure of Bethany Antonia and Nancy Xu leaves a hole the producers should not be allowed to ignore. If same-sex partnerships only appear once every three years, and are then eliminated against the visible evidence of the scores, the message to LGBTQIA+ viewers is hard to miss: you may occupy the space, briefly, on conditions set by others. Fans on X have already said the 'wrong couple' went home. The deeper wrong is a format that treats representation as a scheduling decision rather than a commitment.
Frequently asked questions
Who left Strictly Come Dancing on 8 November 2026?
Bethany Antonia and her partner Nancy Xu were eliminated after losing the dance-off to Cach Mercer and Maddie Ingoldsby, decided by Shirley Ballas's casting vote.
Were Bethany and Nancy the first same-sex couple on Strictly?
No, but they were the first same-sex partnership on the show in three years, and the first since the format reverted to mixed pairings.
Why did viewers call the result unfair?
Bethany and Nancy scored 30 points on Saturday against Cach and Maddie's 26, yet two of the four judges, including head judge Shirley Ballas, voted to save the lower-scoring couple.