Strictly star defends their decision to keep short hair, despite criticism from the Miss France controversy.

Strictly Come Dancing professional dancer Lauren Oakley has weighed in on the backlash Miss France has been facing for her unconventional beauty, reminding people not to comment on someone's appearance.

The 32-year-old, who was paired with Krishnan Guru-Murthy for this year's series of the BBC show, rocks a cropped haircut. Eve Gilles, who was recently crowned Miss France, also has a pixie cut, which saw the 20-year-old hit with criticism from trolls, who bizarrely claimed her victory was the result of ‘woke’ scheming by the judges.

Taking to Instagram on Thursday night, Lauren admitted she didn't know whether she should comment on the subject, but felt she "had" to.

"I'm happy, comfortable and most of the time confident with my appearance. I choose to have short hair, and I think it looks nice on me," she said.

"I have days where I compare myself and don't feel so pretty ... but I feel lucky that I'm confident with my image. I like the difference. I like representing what is unfortunately classed as ‘unconventional’ beauty. I think it's important."

The dancer went on to remind her fans that "only being feminine if you have long hair is a social construct, when actually, beauty is in choice."

She continued: "People have reached out to me to talk about it, and comments on social media and otherwise don't upset me. What upsets me is that people feel the need to have an opinion on somebody else's appearance. I'm grateful that I've learnt how not to take it personally. I want to encourage people to think twice about passing comments on appearance, when in fact it has nothing to do with you."

Lauren recalled times she'd been told "dancers don't have short hair" and said she wanted to use those moments to be free to express herself.

"The most important thing is that they're happy in their skin, and if they're not quite there yet, let's help them by building them up," she concluded.

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