EX-STRICTLY star Rachel Riley has accused the BBC1 dance show of being fixed and says the bosses know who they want to win.
The Countdown Maths whizz, 36, took part on the show in 2013 and met her future husband Pasha Kovalev, 42, when she was paired with him.
But despite their sizzling chemistry, Rachel was voted out in the fifth round of the contest, partly because she was so inexperienced at dancing.
She said: “I think they know from the start who they want to win and what journeys they want to take different people on, to have the right balance, and they can obviously fix the scores.”
Rachel added that the show was “very produced” and that the British public wants contestants who are beginners rather than celebs with extensive training.
Speaking to The Celeb Reportday Times Magazine, she said: “I think Brits want an underdog. We want to build someone up, not see someone who is good from the start – that’s not the heart of these programmes.”
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Rachel, who recently revealed she was upskirted by a mystery celeb at a party, also said she suffered from a mild form of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder after taking part in the show.
She added: “It’s a really intense period. I had insecurities about my dancing because your whole self-worth is built around it. And you have this team mentality, then you’re suddenly dropped.
“It still carries on but you’ve been put in the bin.
“And you don’t do the exercise you were doing, so you have the loss of all the serotonin … When I was doing it, it was the best fun, then in the years that followed it was just…tricky.
“A lot of people end up with some sort of mental misalignment from it. Sophie Ellis-Bextor said that they needed to have a bit more care for contestants.
“I’m glad I’m away from it now.”
Rachel also reacted strongly to the suggestion her relationship with Russian hunk Pasha, with whom she now has two daughters Maven, 2, and six-month-old Noa, was a result of the Strictly curse.
She was married to Jamie Gilbert when she started the contest, but they split after 16 months and she started dating her pro partner.
Rachel said: “Are you calling my babies a curse? That’s not right! If you have cracks [Strictly] can expose them. It gave me the distance to make the break that was going to happen anyway.”
On Rachel’s fix claims, a BBC spokeswoman said: “This claim is categorically untrue. The BBC has strict procedures and editorial guidelines in place regarding impartiality and Strictly upholds all of these.”
