star Saffron Barker has revealed that she tried to get out of a Strictly Come Dancing routine before being brutally eliminated. The social media sensation and podcast host was only 19 years old when she appeared on the BBC dance competition in 2019 as the first-ever female influencer. Partnered with AJ Pritchard, the pair made it all the way to the semi-final before being voted off in the dreaded dance-off. She has spoken to Express Online exclusively about her Strictly experience and whether or not she still speaks to her former dance partner, as well as revealing how she felt when fans had their say about her.

"From the beginning, the samba was going to be the most difficult, and it's the one dance I didn't want to do, and it's the dance I went home on, and it was also the dance that AJ had left," she revealed.

"Every time he'd gone out on the show, he'd gone home on the samba. So we had asked not to do this, and we did not want to do the samba."

Speaking about the BBC fans, she recalled, "I think a lot of people, especially the older generation, didn't take me seriously. I mean the younger generation did because everyone was watching YouTube, way more than they were watching TV, which is why I guess TV wanted YouTubers to go onto TV."

She added, "I think like the biggest thing that it did was made people look at me from a different perspective and realized that actually I did a lot more than they kind of thought, like, 'Oh, she literally just picks up a camera', when actually there's a lot more to that."

When quizzed about AJ Pritchard, who left the show in 2020 after four years, she said, "I feel like we have a catch-up just now and then, but we definitely don't speak every single day."

Saffron Barker is part of a generation whose careers were made possible by YouTube. From uploading videos as a teenager in Brighton to becoming a household name, her remarkable journey reflects just how profoundly YouTube has shaped modern media and created space for authentic voices.

Now that YouTube has turned 20 years old, the platform has empowered creators like Saffron to grow from casual vloggers to full-scale media brands. With millions of followers, clothing lines, and podcast success, her career showcases what's possible when creativity meets opportunity.