AJ Pritchard complains Strictly pay is 'not good' in candid BBC show admission

AJ Pritchard has suggested that it would have taken him a quarter of a century to come close to being a millionaire on the wages he received from Strictly Come Dancing.

The pro, who was regularly referred to as "the bridesmaid but never the bride" for making it to the semi-final three seasons in a row but never getting past that stage, shared his very candid comments about the show in a new podcast. Setting the record straight, he explained: "Our parents [and] friends were like, 'Oh his first year of Strictly, well, he's a millionaire straight away.'"

However, he quickly added that he was not receiving the "favoured nation's wage" that some had thought he was - and said he was left with "no life" at the end of mammoth working days. "If we work out the hours that we'd work from God knows what to God knows when, it's not that good when somebody said they think you're a millionaire.

"It would take me 25 years to get to that, them sort of numbers." (sic) He then went on to suggest that he'd seen himself as a "public servant" during his stint on the show.

"I always thought about my job as being a public servant in the aspect of it was to entertain 12 million people live on a Saturday and make them forget about all their troubles for 90 seconds," AJ explained. "Strictly is great, but it's not guaranteed. It's not forever."

His revelations came after he revealed he'd quit due to gruelling 18-hour work days which left him feeling like he had "no life".

Fortunately, he was only trolled occasionally, whereas he would receive "thousands" of supportive messages in comparison.

However, talking on the Secure The Insecure podcast with his brother Curtis, he was keen to address rumours that Strictly had made him wealthy.

Having left the show five years ago, he is now involved with other projects including a dance tour with Curtis titled Come What May.

He vows he's unlikely to forget his time partnering the likes of singer Mollie King and YouTuber Saffron Barker, but has since moved on from the show.

He told The Sun it had been "a relief" to finally quit after struggling with the intense time commitments that the show required.

This was a complaint also voiced by 2016 star Laura Whitmore, who said she was "extremely uncomfortable" being isolated from the rest of the world as she trained with Giovanni Pernice for 12 hours each day.

AJ stated at the time that the show "took up six months of my life", with him sometimes working 18-hour days as he was both "dancing and choreographing".

"I didn't have a life and I wanted to be able to do more," he explained.