Alesha Dixon has insisted that she wasn’t ‘that bad’ during her first week on Strictly Come Dancing and branded many of her critics as ‘bitchy.’

Dixon told Heat magazine: “I think there’s a difference between having an opinion and being bitchy. It’s okay to have an opinion, but what’s not okay is when people say that you’re an airhead.

“What I started to realise with my 30-year-old ‘airhead’ was that this situation says more about other people than it does about me. They’d started slagging me off before the show had even started.”

She added: “What does that say about the perception of the younger generation? That actually because you’re below a certain age, you’re not going to have any intelligence our an opinion? I find that really bizarre.

“I didn’t think it was going to be a smooth ride, but I was shocked at how big a deal it was made into.”