Vito Coppola unintentionally found himself at the centre of further backlash against Strictly Come Dancing's results show being pre-recorded as he appeared to be in two places at once on Sunday night, leading viewers to demand the BBC stop 'taking them for fools.'

The Italian pro, having reached the Strictly final with Fleur East in his debut series last year, is being tipped to taste victory this time round, as he and celebrity partner Ellie Leach remain the clear favourites to win the BBC show. The well fancied couple did their chances no harm at all on Saturday night, when they soared to the top of the leaderboard right at the end of the night, after their red hot Argentine Tango scored 38 out of 40 and fans were once again left annoyed that they didn't get a perfect 40.

Vito and Ellie were one of the first couples to be called safe by host Tess Daly as she revealed this week's Strictly result to millions of viewers at home on Sunday, with them then chatting to Tess' co-star Claudia Winkleman about how it felt to make it through to the quarter final. As has become customary on Strictly. once she finishes the her interviews with the first set of safe couples, Claudia then introduces the guest musical act for this week.

READ MORE: Strictly Come Dancing LIVE: Results show confirms 'shock' outcome and judges divide

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On Sunday night, that was Texas, however a big flaw in the BBC's continuity efforts to make the results show seem 'live' occurred, when Vito, sat next to Claudia upstairs in the studio, was then on the dancefloor just moments later, to perform to Texas' rendition of their hit Inner Smile alongside fellow pro Luba Mushtuk.

It didn't take viewers at home long at all to react to the 'giveaway' clue that the results broadcast was very much pre-recorded, with one writing on X (Twitter): "Quick change by Vito there then. So obvious now performances are pre-recorded before the pre-record - they do an increasingly worse job of seamlessly integrating them." Clocking exactly the same thing, another fan commented: "Vito talking to Claudia one second in the sky box and then dancing with Luba lmao Sunday show my ass, this s**t is so pre recorded..."

The fact that the weekly Strictly results programme is actually filmed on Saturday night, just hours after the live shows ends, has been a major gripe for viewers for years, largely down to the fact it leads to an increasingly hard to avoid spoiler leaking the result every week. Also blasting the BBC for not doing a live results broadcaster, another critic responded: "why do the @BBC continue with the charade of stating that the Strictly Result Show is live on Sunday when the world know it's recorded after the main show on Saturday! Do you take the general public for fools"