Strictly Come Dancing's George Clarke insults It Take Two host Janette Manrara during awkward TV interview
There was a cringy debate over the Cha-cha-cha
Strictly Come Dancing‘s George Clarke has put his foot in it with Janette Manrara during an interview on It Takes Two.
Taking a break from dance training on Wednesday night (29 October), the social media star swung by the Strictly: It Takes Two studios alongside professional partner Alexis Warr.
The pair were debriefing on how their upcoming rehearsals were coming along for Strictly’s Halloween spectacular on Saturday night.
But in describing how he’s finding the Cha-ch-cha, the 25-year-old made a wrong-footed comment which may have rubbed Janette up the wrong way.
Strictly Come Dancing’s George Clarke insults It Take Two host Janette Manrara
On Saturday, George and Alexa will be Cha-cha-cha-ing to Charli XCX’s hit song, Apple. When quizzed on how he’s finding the routine, a bashful George replied he was “coping okay”.
However, it would seem that he’s not particularly taken with the quick and pacy dance. “The cha cha does seem like a strange mix,” George said. “I don’t know who made it up and what kind of state they were in…”
The Cha-cha is actually a Cuban dance, which first rose to prominence in the 1950s. It Takes Two host Janette, who has Cuban ancestry, was quick to remind George of this.
“Cubans [made it up],” she curtly informed him. “My people.”
Meanwhile, George wasn’t quite done in mildly insulting the cha cha’s creators: “It was like they had enough of ballroom and wanted to pad the Latins out and threw something in,” he laughed.
While it could have been awkward, Janette was ever the pro, and made light of the situation. Laughing it off, she said: “I love that description.”
But in a final dig, she sarcastically added: “I’ll be sure to pass it on to my grandparents.”
George Clarke’s former ‘dance experience’
Saturday night’s cha cha won’t be the first time that George has danced to Apple by Charli XCX.
The song went viral in 2023 due to its unique dance routine, which saw many social media influencers attempt it for their followers. Naturally, George has also given the infamous Apple dance a go.
“I’ve done it before,” he confessed. “As part of a video. There’s your headline! Previous dance training.”
How did George Clarke do during Icons Week?
Hopefully, George’s Cha-cha will result in a more positive score for the star compared to last week’s attempts. For Icons Week, George was forced to channel his inner Harry Styles for his Jive to smash hit song, As It Was.
Scoring just 27 points, the influencer found himself at the bottom of the leaderboard with some damning comments from the judges.
“It was a little bit flat-footed, which made it look stompy,” Craig Revel-Horwood told a crestfallen George.
While Anton Du Beke was more complimentary, saying George and Alexis’s partnership was charming to watch, it seems the viewers were willing to back the routine.
Despite scoring last, George escaped the dreaded dance-off, having rallied enough of the public vote to sail through to Halloween.
However, George admitted that the experience had knocked his self-esteem ahead of this Saturday.
“I’d be lying if I said I was overly confident,” he said on It Takes Two. “I think no real part of me expected to get through [to Halloween] and I think you can see that when you could see we were getting down to the final four.”
Fingers crossed that George has some tricks up his sleeve to give us a real treat of a dance this Saturday…
