Mollie King has opened up about her most recent ‘Strictly Come Dancing’ dance-off, after she was controversially saved over competitor Aston Merrygold.

Since Aston – who was previously among the favourites to win this year’s Glitterball Trophy – was voted off the show on Sunday (5 November), viewers have been kicking off on social media, even prompting judge Craig Revel Horwood to defend himself after he was accused of being responsible for the former JLS singer’s exit.

On Tuesday (7 November), Mollie appeared on spin-off show ‘It Takes Two’ to discuss having been saved over Aston, and she admitted she didn’t think it was fair that he wound up in the dance-off at all.

She told presenter Zoe Ball: “It felt like a real lose-lose situation, because to be in the bottom two with Aston, he shouldn’t have been there.”

Mollie also admitted that the result had been particularly emotional because of her past history with Aston, having known each other from when they were both in pop groups The Saturdays and JLS.

“I’ve known him for nearly 10 years,” Mollie added, “I didn’t want him to go but I didn’t want to go, and that’s why it was a really emotional weekend.”

The most recent dance-off marked the second time in a row that Mollie and professional partner AJ Pritchard have found themselves in the bottom two couples, having previously been saved over TV chef Simon Rimmer a week earlier.

She and her fellow contestants will perform once again in Saturday’s (11 November) live show, kicking off at 6.45pm on BBC One.