Seann Walsh and Katya Jones will be performing a “Dance of Shame” on Strictly Come Dancing at the weekend, judge Craig Revel Horwood has said.
The comedian, who has been publicly dumped by his girlfriend, and his professional partner have both apologised after they were pictured kissing in the street.
They will be back in the spotlight on Saturday’s show with a Charleston.
Straight-talking Horwood told The Jonathan Ross Show: “My take was keep them in the show, make them do the Dance of Shame, if you like.”
The judge added: “It’s really important that, if this does happen to you, you face up to it.
“You either, as they’ve done, apologise, which is absolutely fine.
“But get on with the job and show people what you’re made of and show people ‘OK, this is what I did, I’ve been employed to do this job, I’m going to go on, do the job, get on with it and do it well and do it professionally’.”
And he added: “If you were at your Christmas party and you snogged the boss, for instance, you’d still have to do the Walk of Shame on the Monday, wouldn’t you?”
Horwood described the so-called Strictly curse, which has been blamed for many relationship break-ups, “as a blessing, actually … when you think of the success stories”.
But he said the Walsh and Jones kiss was “very different because one person is married, the other one had a girlfriend”.
He told the ITV show: “People … if they are in love or are married, end up being absolutely faithful to one another because of that love….
“There has to be something wrong in your relationship before it all goes awry.”
Horwood said the pair’s dancing had improved last weekend “but I would not put that down to a snog at the back of a pub…
“I would put it down to hard work and having to act through the dance and tell that story,” he said
Chat show host Ross quipped that Jones and Walsh will be dancing with a “sheet between them” on Saturday.
Horwood replied: “I wanted to see the rumba (which they were previously tipped to be performing), the dance of love, I’m sure everyone wants to see that.
“That’s one of my favourite dances. You still have to act through it.”
Walsh is favourite to get the boot from the show on Sunday.
But head judge Shirley Ballas hopes viewers “judge the dancing and not the relationship or anything else, that it’s purely down to what they see on the viewing on a Saturday evening”.
Horwood said that while the judges “are professional”, the “public might go one of two ways – the other way is to keep them in to see what happens. There is of course that”, to which Darcey Bussell joked: “Like a soap opera in itself”.
Actress Rebecca Humphries has accused her now ex of calling her “psycho/nuts/mental” when she suspected something was going on and said the kiss took place on her birthday.
Walsh apologised on Strictly spin-off show It Takes Two but added: “I am not the person I’m being portrayed as.”
Horwood also told Ross that he had been rammed by a supermarket trolley and punched by an “old lady, probably about 80, 85” because of his straight-talking critiques.
“She came up and she said ‘Are you that Craig Revel Horwood from the telly?’ and I said ‘Yes’ and she went ‘Whack!’ and totally smacked me across the face. I couldn’t believe it.
“And then she said ‘Don’t change, darling. You are awful, but…’,” he told the show.
And Ballas admitted she gets a little help with her seat at the judges’ table on the BBC One show.
“I have a cushion to try and get me to a similar height because I’m the shortest,” she said.
The Jonathan Ross Show airs on Saturday at 9.50pm on ITV.