ITV Loose Women star, Brenda Edwards, has defended Strictly Come Dancing finalist Layton Williams, hitting back at the ‘distressing’ backlash he received for his past dance experience

Brenda Edwards has defended Strictly Come Dancing finalist Layton Williams’ past dance experience after he finished as a runner-up on Saturday’s finale.

Talking about Ellie Leach and Vito Coppola winning the Glitterball trophy over the weekend, the panellists shared their thoughts. Brenda, 54, who has known Layton, 29, for ten years, was quick to defend the star after he received backlash while taking part on the series.

During his time on the hit BBC One series, Layton, who defended his past dance experience before joining the show, often opened up about the trolling he received with his pro partner, Nikita Kuzmin, even hitting back at the trolls, calling it ‘sad and unnecessary’.

Layton Williams finished as a runner-up on Saturday’s finale, which was won by Ellie Leach ( 
Image:
BBC/Guy Levy)
Talking on Monday’s Loose Women, Brenda said: “Literally from the first week, he was brilliant and as everybody said, he was brilliant. But he still had critique of: ‘You’re not doing this right, you’re not doing that right.’ There was still that critique there for him.

“What upsets me is when you’ve got social media going crazy because something’s been leaked that he’s done this dancing here, he’s done that dancing there and he was in this production there. As a musical theatre performer, as a performer, if you go to an art school you’ve got drama, you’ve got dance, you’ve got singing. You can choose to do any one of those.

“He’s not the first person who’s gone onto Strictly that has had some dancing or even won awards for dancing and nothing has been said. But all of a sudden, everyone’s up in arms. He is brilliant, he is fantastic at his craft, he’s worked hard. I’ve known him for over ten years and that young man is so dedicated, he just puts his all, his heart and soul into everything.

“It just really distresses me that he was asked to come on a show and he’s being penalised for saying yes to going on that show. There’s no need for that [nasty remarks], he’s a talented young man at the end of the day.

The Loose Women panellists shared their thoughts on the Strictly Come Dancing final
“He did get high scores, so really, if people want to say something… maybe it should just go to the judges and then he would have won because he had all the [scores]. But it’s more a popularity thing or what people read that they don’t like, so let me get behind that person.”

It comes as Bad Education star Layton, who has previously defended his past dance experience, spoke about representing the LGBTIQA+ community and said on the trolling he has received: “It’s just one of those things I had in my mind maybe it would happen but then I don’t know, it’s like: ‘Really, are we still there?'”

Layton added: “I like to wear this, I do whatever I want and the team are really behind us.” Talking about some of the trolling he receives, he added: “It’s like: ‘Can you not just dress like a man, please please please put a suit on!’ and I’m like: ‘Girl, relax!'”

Nikita was quick to jump in as he said: “We get a bit defensive of our partners and just to see sometimes people speaking things or saying things they shouldn’t be saying. Sometimes things also get to him, and that’s a personal side, I find it sad and unnecessary [the trolling]. At the end of the day, we just want to make people happy, we just want to put on a show…”

It comes as fans claimed Layton and Nikita were ‘robbed’ on Saturday night and should have won due to topping the leaderboard with 119 points. However, the Strictly winner is determined by a public vote.