BBC Strictly Come Dancing's Toyah Willcox dealt another 'heartbreaking' blow hours before live show

Strictly Come Dancing's Toyah Willcox and her professional partner Neil Jones were left in the bottom two against Tom Dean last weekend and are the favourites to leave this week

Toyah Willcox is once again predicted to be the next contestant to leave Strictly Come Dancing, having found herself in the bottom two against Tom Dean last weekend. Despite being saved by the judges, online bookmaker Betway suggests Toyah will be the next to exit the BBC competition.

Last week, despite being the favourite to leave, it was Olympic swimmer Tom who was surprisingly eliminated first.

Betway spokesperson Chad Yeomans told Express.co.uk: "Even after channelling her inner Tina Turner to avoid elimination last week, the spotlight remains firmly on Toyah Willcox as she's still the 1/1 favourite to depart this weekend.

"Toyah and Neil will be dancing the difficult Samba to 'Poor Unfortunate Souls' from The Little Mermaid, and many punters feel it may be a step too far for her to pull off convincingly! Next in the elimination betting is former footballer Paul Merson who finished last with just 15 points in week two, and now finds himself as the 3/1 second favourite to be shown the door on Sunday night."

He continued: "Meanwhile, Chris McCausland continues to dazzle both the judges and the public. As we head into Movie Week, he's set to jive to the Wayne's World theme and remains the runaway favourite to win the show at 11/8," reports Express.

Earlier this week, Neil and Toyah spoke with Fleur East on Strictly's It Takes Two about the dance-off, with the singer confessing she was "heartbroken".

Fleur queried: "The first red light moment of the series. What was it like finding yourself in that position?"

A downcast Toyah confessed: "Really, frightening, upsetting, disappointing, heartbreaking, everything that's a negative was in that moment. It was shocking."

Turning to Neil, the host enquired: "Neil, How gutted were you to be in that position after such a huge improvement from Toyah?"

The dance professional responded: "It's one of those things and I said to Toyah before, I said that 'two couples are going to be in that position and I said to it, if it happened, it is what it is, we can't do anything about it, other than come back fighting'.

"I was just really proud of her because I was like, she was brilliant, she was so good. You improved so much that week."

"I agree," Toyah concurred with a nod as Fleur interjected: "You're clearly a fighter, yeah. What was your mindset going into the dance-off?"

Toyah elucidated: "Well as a singer when we have to perform in whatever environment we're in, we perform, and when we went into this kind of dance-off, something went off in me like hellfire.

"I just thought, 'no one is going to do this to me. I'm going to survive this'. I went somewhere else, and it was powerful and I think we did well."

Strictly Come Dancing returns on Saturday at 6.25pm on BBC One.