Strictly Come Dancing is ultimately harder than Celebrity SAS: Who Dares Wins, AJ Pritchard declares (Picture: Channel 4/BBC)
AJ Pritchard reckons Celebrity SAS: Who Dares Wins is a hell of a lot easier than Strictly Come Dancing after becoming one of four recruits to pass the Channel 4 endurance show.
The 27-year-old professional dancer successfully completed the host of gruelling challenges along with EastEnders actress Maisie Smith, former Towie star Ferne McCann, and reality TV personality Calum Best in scenes that aired on Sunday night.
Asked whether he found his time on Strictly more challenging, AJ admitted he did.
‘I think for me, SAS was so therapeutic and so beautiful and I feel like I achieved what I wanted,’ he shared.
‘But Strictly itself, being a professional dancer you are a life coach, you are the driving force, you are the person that puts it all together and holds it together when it’s going wrong so mentally and physically, Strictly is a hell of a lot longer at six months.
‘And probably if SAS was for six months it’d be hard but Strictly for being six months is harder than SAS. I have to be open and honest about that.’
AJ was put through his paces on the latest series of Celebrity SAS: Who Dares Wins (Picture: Channel 4)
AJ was a professional dancer on Strictly for four e=years (Picture: BBC)
He continued: ‘You are a life coach through and through – therapist, taxi man, everything else that comes along with it.
‘Emotionally when you’ve got somebody on a rollercoaster every single week being happy, sad, happy, sad – it’s hard to keep it up.’
AJ starred as a professional dancer on Strictly for four years before calling it a day in 2020.
He began the Celebrity SAS course alongside his brother and fellow professional dancer Curtis, who was eliminated in episode four.
AJ said that after his brother left, he felt like he had to complete the course for the Pritchard name.
‘When Curtis left he obviously gave me a massive hug and he was like “You make sure you don’t stop for anything” and that one sentence in itself was like “I’m behind you. You’ve got double energy now.”
AJ successfully completed the course along with EastEnders actress Maisie Smith, former Towie star Ferne McCann and reality TV personality Calum Best (Picture: Channel 4)
‘That sort of brotherly love and kind of commitment. I knew he was on my shoulder the whole way right to the end because that energy is unspoken but for it even to be said out loud is really emotional. I think that’s why I was so upset when he went.’
The series saw AJ open up about how his ex-girlfriend Abbie Quinnen suffered serious burns following a botched YouTube stunt.
During the interrogation sessions he was quizzed by former soldiers Billy Billingham and Jason Fox on the impact of the incident.
Reflecting on how Celebrity SAS had helped him, AJ told PA: ‘The reason why I went on the show was to deal with a situation of not being afraid to make decisions in a split second.
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‘And to actually be really open with Billy and Foxy there in that mirror room was so rewarding for me to actually watch it back.
‘Because even if you go to therapy and you talk about a situation, or even if you talk to your friends and family, you talk about it.
‘And watching it back and hearing myself talk and hearing the tremors in my voice and how raw it was and how open it was for me… it was really quite therapeutic to see that back.’
Celebrity SAS: Who Dares Wins is available to watch on All4.
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The professional dancer successfully completed the course.