Dancing With The Stars judge baffles with X-rated 'spanking' comment

While Dancing With The Stars has been filled with cheeky jokes and risqué innuendos from hosts Sonia Kruger and Chris Brown this year, viewers were shocked during Monday night’s finale when Helen Richey made one of the raunchiest comments of the season. The longtime judge, who has been a part of the series since it first launched in 2004, left Samantha Jade red-faced when she made an off-colour remark about her burlesque-inspired performance.

“Well, where did that naughty girl come from?” she said. “Seriously, I think every guy in the audience would like to put you over their knee and give you a spanking - including my husband, and he is not going to.”

Viewers took to social media to describe the moment as “bizarre” and “outrageous”, and now Samantha has weighed in on the controversy. Following the grand finale, the pop star toldYahoo Lifestyle that she too was “confused” by Helen’s X-rated comment and wasn’t sure how to interpret it.

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“Oh my gosh. Did you see me hide behind the feather? Because I was like, the ground needs to open up and I just need to pop into it. I was like, 'What is this comment? Oh my god!’. It was a lot,” she says. “I’m gonna take that I guess as a compliment? I don't know about that one, Helen.”

Samantha went on to defend the veteran judge and say that it was probably intended as a flattering remark about her bedazzled bodysuit.

“I don't ever wear things that racy. I'm usually in a full skirt - that wasn’t - and I was in a character,” she details. “When I went in to do my tech run, [the show’s creative director Kelley Abbey] was like, ‘You need to bring out the sass, you need to be sexy in this one, that's your role'. Because every week you get a role that you play, it’s a lot of acting.

“I really had to get in that role, that kind of sassy thing, and that was really fun to do. So I think Helen was talking about that, and I'll take it for that.”

Samantha defends Dancing With The Stars amid complaints

This year’s season of Dancing With The Stars has copped several complaints from fans who have said they aren’t happy with Sonia Kruger’s “smutty innuendos” and “disgusting” comments. An insider told Yahoo Lifestyle last month that editors had been forced to rework the pre-recorded series to be more family-friendly viewing after some people went so far as to declare that the Gold Logie winner was “too crude for television”.

While Samantha admits most of the comments went over her head during filming because she was so exhausted from her performance, she hopes that viewers can enjoy the light-heartedness of the competition

“I think that this show is whatever goes. It’s a very fun environment, it’s very tongue in cheek, and nothing is to be taken too seriously,” she remarks. “I mean, that's the thing. We're all in the arts and everything is a performance, so I look at it like that.”

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Samantha, who finished in second place to four-time Gold Logie-winning actress Lisa McCune, adds that she is thrilled with her experience in the competition and is “totally fine” to not have won.

“I lost to the icon that is Lisa McCune. There are not many people that you'd want to lose to, but she is just a class act. She was my big sister on the show, I just love her,” she gushes. “And really, I wanted a girl to win because there's been a lot of male winners for years. So I'm really happy a girl won.”

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