Bungling Ed Balls dropped Katya Jones on her head during Strictly Come Dancing rehearsals days before he nearly drops her on TV
Ex-shadow chancellor dropped his dance partner during the Charleston just days before a famous 'gropey' blunder
STRICTLY star Ed Balls dropped partner Katya Jones up her head, days before a failed lift nearly threatened her safety during a live show.
The former shadow chancellor, 49, caused a sensation when he made a “gropey” blunder during his American Smooth in week five as he flung her up onto his shoulder.
And Ed has since admitted that it’s not the first time he has made a mistake during a lift.
In an exclusive interview, Ed revealed: “There was one particular thing in the Charleston where we were practising and there was a point where she comes back head-first.
“She falls back and I’m supposed to catch her but we were discussing how to do it and we had a choreographer there with us as well.
“One thing you learn is that you have to agree whether you’re doing it or not but on this particular occasion Katya thought we were, I didn’t realise we were.
“So at the key moment I turned to the choreographer to say ‘is this the right thing?’ as she went flying back head first and it turned out to be really quite brutal.”
And Ed revealed that he was severely punished by Katya for causing the accident.
Speaking at Ladbrokes’ US Election panel discussion he said: “Well let’s just say I’ve not done that again. It would be fair to say that I was roundly chastised.”
Despite this, Ed, who is dancing a Quickstep tonight to The Beatles’ ‘Help!’, admitted that he’s avoided any injury – and is only suffering from mild lower back pain and bruises.
He added: “When you do the Latin and you have to get into these strange positions – it really, really does your lower back so I’ve had lower back pain.
“There’s been nothing else – I may have been lucky. The other thing is that you can’t avoid bruising.
“We all get bruised because there’s actually quite a lot of big moves.”