Shirley Ballas, the head judge on Strictly Come Dancing, has revealed how she was once marked down for her dancing due to her stretch marks being on show.

Good Morning Britain presenters, Richard Madeley and Susanna Reid, asked Ballas about her experience of the dancing industry and her experience in the ballroom on this morning’s (November 29) programme.

Richard asked Shirley: “What makes it a ruthless industry?”

To which Shirley replied: “Because everybody wants to win at any cost and nobody in our industry even to this day gets along. One minute people are speaking, then they’re not speaking. Then they’re speaking, then they’re not speaking. It’s in and out.

“There’s lots of bullying that goes on. People are always manipulating to get where they need to go.

“People without stripes, that means that they’ve never actually really made it in the industry but they think they have so there’s all sorts that goes on there you know.”

Shirley Ballas discusses the worst feedback she was given as a dancer

Susanna asked Shirley: “What’s the worst thing a judge said to you? Because you know what it’s like as head judge. The responsibility of critiquing someone’s dancing and sometimes you get backlash for that but you’ve experienced far worse.”

Shirley explained: “Well, I’ve had a couple of things. You know when I was younger certain teachers used to say, you know, you’re too fat, you’re bigger than you’re partner.

“So it was always a weight issue and then another time when I gave birth to my son, I was 25 and I came back six weeks later to do a competition and my coach actually said ‘we don’t want to see your stretch marks and your big fat legs’ and he marked us third that day and we didn’t win our championship and I never forgot that.

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“It made me feel so terrible about my body when I had just given birth.

“So I think now it’s a lot better. People are more sensitive to what they say but back then there was no filter whatsoever.”