Amanda Holden has found herself having to defend her motives, when she criticised dance troupe Abyss on Saturday night’s Britain’s Got Talent shows.

The actress and singer said no to the street dancers when they tried out for the ITV show in London, because she claimed they weren’t as good as former show winners Diversity, but she has since come under attack on Twitter from viewers who claimed that she turned the boys down because they were black.

Later in the episode, Amanda was seen putting through mostly white dance troupe High Definition and Twitter users claimed her decision was racist.

Shocked by the accusations, Holden tweeted her followers on Saturday night saying:

“I would have said the same things to a dance group whatever colour they were!

“Using the race card is cheap and unclassy!”

A spokeswoman for Amanda told The Daily Star: “She is perplexed by what’s happened.”

A spokeswoman for Britain’s Got Talent added: “We have not received any complaints about this.”

Although Amanda said no, Abyss did win the approval of her two fellow judges Louis Walsh and Michael McInytre and have promised that they will showcase some amazing moves, if they make the live semi finals.

Speaking about their routine at the first audition, group leader Ricardo Small, 29, told The Sun:

“It didn’t showcase as much of what we could do as we had thought.”