The NASTIEST man on TV - could Dancing On Ice's panto villain Jason Gardiner's days be numbered?

His reaction was instinctive — and vicious. When Karen Barber took issue with Jason Gardiner’s comments about war hero Johnson Beharry VC on last Sunday’s Dancing On Ice, the acid-tongued judge shot back with: ‘If your opinion mattered, Karen, you’d still be on the judging panel.’ 

He subsequently attempted a half-hearted apology, but the damage was done. It must be said that Karen Barber’s new role in the top-rated ice-skating competition is borderline ridiculous. 

Sitting on what looks like an old kitchen chair, her eyes permanently on the point of spouting a torrent of tears behind the enthusiastically applied maquillage, she leaps to the defence of any of the dancers grouped behind her whose performance is questioned.

Slugging it out: Karen Barber and Jason Gardiner come to blows on Dancing on Ice while presenter Holly Willoughby is powerless to stop them

Sniffs Jason: ‘Karen’s inevitably Mother Hen because she helps coach the skaters. I say what I see. Her comments come from the heart, which is why you get the tears from her, all that emotion. 

‘I’m never going to agree that, because someone’s been working hard all week, they should be marked up. You’d hope that everyone’s been working hard. I judge each contestant on that evening’s performance.’

Cat fight: Jason Gardiner has unleashed a torrent of spiteful comments on the show, particularly aiming his vitriol at former judge Karen Barber

He has a point. But when Karen sobbed that Jason was ‘a nasty, nasty man’, she must have struck a chord with millions of viewers. More than 3,500 have so far complained to watchdog Ofcom that Jason went beyond the bounds of acceptable behaviour. 

Nor was it the first time the Australian dancer and choreographer had caused outrage. Previous contestant Dame Kelly Holmes, in Jason’s opinion, looked like ‘a man in drag’; Gordon Ramsay’s wife, Tana, had ‘all the sensuality of a frigid schoolmistress’; and, worst of all, Olympic swimmer Sharron Davies, dressed in brown, gave a performance that was ‘like watching faecal matter that won’t flush’.

Former DOI judge Nicky Slater, a one time British ice- dancing champion who was ousted from the panel this series, took particular exception to this comment last season. ‘Jason has no experience of skating,’ he says, ‘and reduced the series to a low point with his remarks about Sharron.’

The Ofcom adjudicators disagreed. Gardiner, they ruled, ‘is well-established as the acerbic nasty judge on the show and the comparison played up to his pantomime villain image’.

It looks like he’ll get away with it this time too. Dancing On Ice presenter Phillip Schofield rode to Jason’s rescue. On Monday’s edition of This Morning, he admitted, ‘He makes me laugh even when he’s being bad, but I think he had more than a foot over the line last night.’ By Tuesday, his position had shifted. ‘Please do not expect me to condemn Jason,’ he Tweeted, ‘or to expect his sacking. A telly spat is not a sackable offence.

‘It was a disagreement between two people which spilled on to the screen but it’s not the first row to be broadcast and it won’t be the last. I’m a big fan of Karen and Jason. I don’t think they’ll ever be friends but they should both be on Dancing On Ice.’ 

This is known as having your cake and eating it and may not be entirely unconnected to the fact that Jason appears twice weekly on This Morning with Phillip and Holly Willoughby.

Struggling to be human: Jason says he doesn't need people to like him and describes himself like 'Teflon' because no nasty name flung at him will stick

But compare Gardiner’s performance with Nigel Lythgoe, Simon Cowell and Craig Revel Horwood, each playing the role of Mr Nasty on their respective shows but doing so with detectable compassion and humour. Jason may bare those tombstone teeth when he permits himself a chilly smile, but never does it reach his eyes.

Reduced to tears: A weeping Karen Barber, who bore the brunt of Jason's criticisms, is in a relationship with the show's biggest star - could this mean Gardiner days are numbered?

Lythgoe once famously said of Kym Marsh on Popstars: ‘Christmas may have been and gone but I see the goose is still fat.’ It reduced her to tears and he later told me that he regretted having said it and went out of his way to be kind to her after that. ‘But,’ he added, with a twinkle in his eye: ‘Better to be Nasty Nigel than Nice Nigel. More fun to be the baddie.’

Similarly, Revel Horwood has been cast as Strictly’s resident judge-in-the-black-hat, although Bruno Tonioli laughs at the notion of his friend being a true baddie. ‘Anyone who knows him well knows that he’s a sweetheart,’ he says.

Revel Horwood himself believes that the viewing public have grown to understand, perhaps even like him. ‘Once upon a time, I got properly booed but it’s different now. It’s more of a joyous boo these days.’

Unfortunately for Jason Gardiner, he simply doesn’t have the charm to carry off his vicious taunts. He seemed to start this series positively enough, perhaps shocked at the way the panel’s only two real ice dancers had been removed — Nicky Slater being inexplicably dropped entirely, and Nicky’s former professional partner, Karen Barber, shunted to the bizarre position of ‘head coach’. 

Straining every sinew in his attempt to balance criticism with praise, Jason almost appeared to be human at times. But spiky little comments have a habit of poking through, with Sunday’s comeback to Karen a telling illustration of his true colours.

But is there any real need to be quite so bitchy? ‘Yes,’ he said, the last time we met, ‘because it gets a reaction and makes the contestant work even harder the next week. 

‘I won’t sugar-coat what I say. Everybody’s so lovely to all of them, even Torvill and Dean. But I’m not sure that wrapping celebrities’ feelings in cotton wool is ultimately very helpful. Anyway, they all signed up for the show and it’s not the first series. They knew what I was like.’

I can take anything anyone says about me... I’m like Teflon. It doesn’t stick. And I can give as good as I get. Bring it on!
 

He’s fearless, then? ‘Well, yes, although why would I care about these people? I only care about the opinions of people I know and love.’

Unlike other panellists, only once has Jason agreed to go on the successful live arena tour that follows the TV show. He shudders. ‘After three months of doing the TV series, the last thing I want to do is nine shows a week on the road with celebrities, most of whom don’t like me anyway.’ Perhaps he truly doesn’t need people to like him. But that suggests a highly damaged person who’s constructed a moat around himself and pulled up the drawbridge. ‘I’ve never really looked for approval in others,’ he agrees. 

‘But then that’s probably a legacy of my start in life. I was a loner. I’ve forged my own path.’

He was raised outside Melbourne in rural Victoria. (‘Sydney’s the slut. Melbourne’s the lady,’ he says, charmingly). His mother was just 14 when she gave birth to him. ‘I finally met her years later and no, I didn’t feel any connection,’ he says.

He’s never known the identity of his biological father. ‘And, because of the circumstances surrounding what happened, I’m never likely to find out.’ He refuses to be drawn on those circumstances but it’s pretty clear they must have been traumatic. 

‘At first, I found it tough. It’s natural to want to know the identity of both your parents. But I’ve moved on now.’

At six months, he was adopted by Keith, a fireman, and his wife, Pam, who’d been unable to have children. But when Jason was three, Pam fell pregnant with Jamie. ‘We were treated exactly the same,’ insists Jason. ‘But Jamie was a bruiser and liked to do the same things as Dad. I gravitated towards Mum.’ 

One more barbed insult towards Karen and it’s not impossible to imagine her leaning across the pillow and imploring her lover to get rid of her ‘nasty, nasty’ nemesis

At four, Jason was already enthralled by gymnastics. At seven, he insisted on classical ballet classes. ‘I’m sure that was a big pill for Dad to swallow but I was beyond precocious. There was no way I’d take no for an answer. I was going to be a dancer.’

He was not yet quite 16 when he enrolled at ballet school in Sydney. ‘And it was a mess, quite frankly. I was surrounded by girls with eating disorders and ambiguous young men trying to be heterosexual.’ No such ambiguity for Jason? ‘I was a pubescent teenager at the time and, while I already sensed I wasn’t going to end up with 2.4 kids, I hadn’t yet quite worked out all of that stuff.’

Some months later, he decided it was time to confess his sexuality to his adoptive mother. ‘I was really nervous,’ he says now. ‘I said there was something I needed to tell her and please could we discuss it in my bedroom. I could see she was really worried. Finally, I blurted it out. “I don’t know how to tell you, Mum,” I said, “but I think I’m gay.”

‘Her face broke into a smile. “Oh, thank God for that,” she said. “I thought you were going to tell me you were on drugs or something. I’ve known ever since the day I brought you home for the first time.” I asked her how. “You were already singing and dancing in your cot,” she said. 

‘She told Dad who, to his credit, never treated me any differently, although he did apparently say to Mum it was probably a passing phase.’

Jason first arrived in the UK in 1994. He was 23 and appeared in the film of Cats with Elaine Paige. Two seasons as a judge on Graham Norton’s Strictly Dance Fever followed and then came the call from ITV for Dancing On Ice. ‘As soon as I heard I’d be working with Torvill and Dean I said yes,’ he says. 

There have been countless negative stories but he insists: ‘I can take anything anyone says about me. Most TV critics, for instance, refer to me as an acid-tongued ice queen. But I’m like Teflon. It doesn’t stick. 

‘If I don’t know you, I don’t care what you say about me. Anyway, if you put it out, you must expect to get it back. And I can give as good as I get. Bring it on!’ 

So where next for Jason Gardiner, 40 in June (or 46, if you believe Wikipedia)? He loves his judging role on DOI, saying of his two fellow judges: ‘I admire Emma Bunton. She knows what it is to perform and comes from a dance background.’ He’s also a big fan of Robin Cousins. ‘He’s won three Olympic gold medals.’ 

Pause. ‘For me, he’s more accomplished than Christopher Dean.’

There he goes again. But he’d better watch himself. Teflon man he may be but he’s not above being removed from the show that brings him into over ten million homes each Sunday. It’s unlikely he’ll be axed mid-series, but you’d get pretty poor odds on his returning in 2012. This is a show with one alpha male — Olympic hero Dean, who along with iconic partner Jayne Torvill teaches contestants to skate and choreographs their routines. 

And battle lines may have been subtly but significantly re-drawn elsewhere in recent weeks. Dean’s second marriage is over and so now is Karen Barber’s first. The two have finally confirmed they are together. So, for how much longer can Jason bite back that acid tongue?

One more barbed insult towards Karen and it’s not impossible to imagine her leaning across the pillow and imploring her lover to get rid of her ‘nasty, nasty’ nemesis. 

He’d be the last person to acknowledge this, but Jason Gardiner is currently skating on very thin ice.

By RICHARD BARBER
http://www.dailymail.co.uk