Amanda Abbington has revealed that it was a cancer scare that caused her to leave Strictly Come Dan in the wake of the Giovanni Pernice verdict.
The BBC issued an apology to Abbington, 50, and upheld some of her complaints against Pernice, 33, but cleared him of the most serious ‘physical aggression’ allegations in a previously published review.
Now, Abbington has spoken out about what caused her to leave Strictly, revealing things with Pernice were so bad that she was relieved when a cancer scare forced her to leave the show.
When she first left the show in week six of the season, she cited ‘personal and medical’ reasons but has now shared she had two lumps in her breasts – both of which turned out to be benign.
She told the Sun: ‘By my final week, on the Thursday morning, I was in the shower and I found two lumps. I’d got the all-clear after a mammogram a couple of months before.
‘I went in for rehearsals to do the cha-cha-cha and just couldn’t concentrate. Giovanni said, “There’s no point teaching you this because it’s not going in. You can’t get it. We’ll be lucky if we get through because you’re useless.”‘
She went on to say that she was so frustrated with the pro – who she said refused to look at her – that at one point she came back in the room and told him she was leaving to go to the hospital to get the lumps checked.
She continued that it was the ‘catalyst’ she had been waiting for to pull out of the toxic situation.
Abbington claimed she was subject to a ‘toxic environment’ and ‘inappropriate, mean, nasty bullying’ from Pernice, which sparked the investigation.
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Pernice, who is not part of this year’s Strictly professional dancing line-up and has since joined an Italian dance show, previously rejected ‘any claim of threatening or abusive behaviour.’
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