Strictly star pulls out of studio appearance at the last minute due to 'dad duties'

Strictly Come Dancing star Karen Hauer was forced to appear on Strictly's It Takes Two without her dance partner Paul Merson as he was on "dad duties".

The football star was scheduled to make an appearance on the spin-off show alongside his dance partner Karen on Wednesday night. But instead, Paul appeared via video link to discuss his upcoming dance and last week's performance.

Explaining why Paul wasn't in the studio, presenter Janette Manrara said: "Paul you're on dad duties this evening. So you can't be in the studio this evening, that comes first."

She then went straight into this discussion regarding Paul's last dance. Last week, Paul escaped the firing line as he performed a Quickstep to I Won't Dance.

Having received praise from the judges and viewers alike, Paul admitted that he enjoyed the routine. But as he prepares to take on the Samba to the hit song, Car Wash, the 56-year-old said he feels like it's "back to reality".

When asked what his last dance meant to him, Paul said: "Amazing. Just to get a nice dance."

Reflecting on his previous routines, he said: "Obviously, a BBQ, a vindaloo, and footballs are coming in, and he looks like someone who works on a ship. Yeah, it was nice to dance. I thought Karen deserved that as well, to be fair."

Talking about his classy quickstep, he later added: "It felt nice when I first took up the chance to come on to the show. This is what I thought it would be roughly, you know what I mean? So it was nice to get one of those dances in."

Fans of Strictly have complained that Paul has been given jokey performances and wanted him to do more serious routines. While watching It Takes Two, viewers shared their concerns again.

One viewer said, "It makes me annoyed to see Paul and Karen talking about how much he loved being Fred Astaire during the quickstep, and that's what he always expected #Strictly to be, not the silly stuff. And then this week they have a samba to Car Wash, back to being the joke again."

While another echoed: "#Strictly Please listen to Paul and Karen! The expectation when signing up was to learn to dance, with all the associated elegance, not silly songs and silly themes."

Strictly It Takes airs weekdays at 6:30pm on BBC Two.