'Strictly' fans' criticism of Mike Bushell is too nasty for Craig Revel Horwood

Strictly Come Dancing’s Mr Nasty Craig Revel Horwood has blasted the show’s viewers - for being too mean in their criticism of Mike Bushell.

The BBC dance show judge is known for his scathing critiques of celebrity contestants, having branded Viscountess Emma Weymouth “lame” on Saturday night’s episode, but said that the insults levelled at Bushell were too much even for him.

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Revel Horwood was a guest on This Morning on Monday, where he spoke about the controversial eviction of Catherine Tyldesley from Strictly over the weekend when he and head judge Shirley Ballas opted to save sports reporter Bushell in the dance off.

Their decision did not go down well with fans and many took to Twitter to air their grievances, with some of the criticism of Bushell proving so bad that he and his wife had to ask for a stop to the trolling.

Revel Horwood said that all of the dancers left now were good, making the public vote crucial, and added: “This is the problem I think with Catherine leaving, which seems to be great controversy, and it’s not, I don’t see it as that at all.

“My opinion is that Mike was better on the night - if she had been dancing the Rumba, she would have nailed it and gone straight through.”

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Talking about fans tweeting vicious criticism of Bushell, he said: “That’s crazy. I think that people who self-publish on Twitter need to be not self-publishing. There’s a lot of things said on social media that is absolutely disgusting, that you would never, as a writer, I would never be able to put in my books.

“People forget that on Twitter, they are self-publishing, therefore you have to be responsible for whatever you say and take the consequences of it.

“That’s trolling, it’s terrible. He’s in a competition, in my eyes his Tango was better on the night, I’m not saying he’s the better dancer.”

The TV judge was promoting the third instalment of his autobiography, In Strictest Confidence, and spoke about the death of his alcoholic father on the day of the 2015 Strictly final which he covers in his book.

He said: “I sang (My Way) over Skype at the funeral because I had to be on stage (for panto) and there was no way I could go back home to the funeral.

“It was a good thing, and it’s funny when you go to the funeral, via Skype, and you see someone that has been abusive and has had that terrible alcoholism disease all his life suddenly laid to rest, and it was overwhelmingly joyful.

“I know that sounds weird, but it was seeing him out of his misery and his pain, and what everyone else had to go through with him.”