STRICTLY Come Dancing star Krishnan Guru-Murthy has claimed the hit BBC show is still sexist, despite changes in recent years like introducing same-sex couples.
The legendary broadcaster danced on the last series of the primetime favourite alongside newer dancer Lauren Oakley and just missed out on a place at the Blackpool special.
But the Channel 4 newsreader has now complained that men always taking the lead in dances is outdated and also moaned that those who become stars after Strictly “tend to be men” because it is so “male-dominated”.
Krishnan was chatting on today’s The Mid-Point podcast, where host Gabby Logan said: “That whole dynamic of being with somebody, you get to your 50s, you don't spend that much time with another woman when you've been married for 20-odd years, do you? As much as you do on Strictly.
“It's an interesting dynamic - come here and push your groin into mine on day one!"
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Krishnan replied: “That physically intimacy… that you've got to get over very, very quickly."
Gabby said: “Because they touch you - now this is obviously, I've got to be careful how I say this, and times have changed since 2007 when I did Strictly - but they touch you in a way that in no other job in the world could you get away with touching somebody, but it's all part of the job.
“That was something, I was like, 'Oh, hello, so you smoke then?' I was a bit like that on day one!"
Hitting out at the sexism on the show, Krishnan then said: “And I imagine much more for women than for men, to be honest, because it is such a sort of a male-dominated thing.
“The man leads. And I found it quite difficult to get my head around that, actually, for a while because it is a really old-fashioned male-dominated sexist kind of thing."
Gabby at that point discusses how the BBC has tried to improve the balance and led the way with same-sex couples, including this year’s finalists Layton Williams and Nikita Kuzmin.
Krishnan continued: “Yes, although I still think there's something quite old-fashioned about the whole thing."
“I think also sort of in terms of who becomes the star and who's following it and all that kind of stuff, I think it's quite male-dominated in a way that really should still change.
"You know, you think about the people who, the professionals who go through Strictly and then who get careers elsewhere, it tends to be the men."
