When Amanda Abbington tearfully told Giovanni Pernice that she’d found lumps in her breasts, he reacted like a perfect gentleman, say his friends.
Calling around his contacts, the Italian dancer handed her numbers of medics who had been recommended to him, they say.
That was the last he ever heard from her. For she later quit the ballroom competition, explaining to Strictly bosses that she feared she had cancer.
After describing her shock health scare in a newspaper interview at the weekend, the ongoing saga of Abbington’s dramatic departure from Strictly last October – which everyone has heard, many times, was due to her ‘mistreatment’ and ‘bullying’ in rehearsals which left her with PTSD – took a confusing turn.
‘As far as everyone was concerned, Amanda left because she had found some lumps in her breasts that understandably left her worried she could have cancer,’ says a BBC source.
Amanda Abbington and Giovanni Pernice on Strictly Come Dancing last year
‘Nobody wants to have to see anyone go through that and there was a lot of kindness shown to Amanda. Gio was very concerned and wanted to help her in any way he could.
‘The next thing is that she has PTSD… the scenario changed. None of it made sense. She has said she left for a totally different medical reason. The whole thing seemed bizarre.’
The five-month BBC inquiry into Abbington’s allegations ended last week, with a report in which six of the 17 complaints she’d lodged against her 34-year-old dance partner, were upheld. Then, in recent days, the 50-year-old Sherlock actress, who quit the show in week six, revealed intimate details of her cancer scare, saying that was the reason she left.
‘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,’ she said.
After a particularly gruelling rehearsal, she said she then ‘went to the toilet, came back and said, ‘I’m going to go to the hospital now because I found two lumps in my breast this morning’.’ She told the Sun on Sunday that leaving the rehearsal ‘was a healthier option than being in that room’.
To her relief, the lumps were later found to be benign. Abbington’s early departure from Strictly came after weeks of tensions between her and Pernice.
The five-month BBC inquiry into Abbington’s allegations ended last week, with a report in which six of the 17 complaints she’d lodged against her 34-year-old dance partner were upheld
She says she raised issues about him to the BBC at the time and cameras were installed in the studio – at whose request, however, is something neither of them agrees on.
Abbington also claims the BBC batted off her pleas for camera footage, which Pernice claims he requested – another bone of contention between the pair. Then, in April, after Abbington instructed London-based law firm Carter-Ruck to make a formal complaint, the BBC launched its own investigation.
It is understood that Abbington is being represented on a pro-bono basis.
During her Channel 4 interview with Krishnan Guru-Murthy in July, she let slip that she wanted to be compensated and last week it was reported that she is considering legal action.
Indeed, during her interview on Newsnight last week, she said she was assessing her situation carefully ‘on a day-by-day basis.’ BBC insiders say that the corporation is ‘not keen’ on the idea of having to pay out.
‘The chances are Amanda will have a fight on her hands,’ said one source. ‘The BBC has apologised and it gave her a platform to tell her side on Newsnight.
‘The BBC feels it has been very good to her but it will be interesting to see what she does next.’
Pernice is yet to have his say on the saga but on Saturday night his spokeswoman issued a damning statement on his behalf, accusing Abbington of misrepresenting the findings of the inquiry.
She said: ‘The BBC concluded its review almost a week ago. It is deeply concerning that Ms Abbington appears to be hellbent on continuously misrepresenting the review’s findings in TV and newspaper interviews.
‘Giovanni is focusing on his job on Ballando con le Stelle [the Italian version of the show] and supporting his partner Bianca, and hopes that Ms Abbington can soon accept the review’s findings and look to the future.’
Abbington gave an interview to Newsnight last week where she said she was assessing her situation carefully ‘on a day-by-day basis’
Friends of former Strictly professional Giovanni have pointed out that he and Abbington actually did have a jovial friendship
The six complaints upheld by the inquiry were predominantly the less serious ones, including one occasion where Pernice told Abbington: ‘You have talent and you’re not using it.’
He was also confirmed to have used belittling language.
Meanwhile, the ballroom star was also found guilty of giving negative feedback, one example of which was him throwing his arms in the air and saying ‘f***.’ As a result, Pernice was told by the BBC that he didn’t adapt enough to Abbington’s needs.
Of the two complaints which were upheld of a sexual nature, one saw Pernice grab his crotch and utter a lewd remark. He also told his dance partner that he ‘wanted to f*** her’.
That comment came after Abbington had pulled off a great move in the training studio and Pernice was thrilled.
Giovanni is said to be becoming increasingly furious at Abbington slinging mud at him.
‘He doesn’t know when she is going to stop,’ said one pal.
‘We have no idea what she is going to do next, it is becoming absolutely ridiculous.’
Pernice’s frustrations are perhaps not surprising.
During Abbington’s newspaper interview , she made more claims about Pernice which were not upheld by the BBC investigation.
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Did Amanda Abbington use Giovanni as a punchbag to purge the pain of split from Martin Freeman?
Friends of the Sicilian-born star point to one where Abbington claims he called her a ‘vegetable’ to describe her as ‘lazy,’ which was something she says she found particularly offensive given her fiancé is disabled.
The report accepted that it was not a form of bullying.
Instead, investigators accepted Pernice’s position that he used the term to describe her posture – and not describing her as lazy.
‘Gio told the report that he used the word vegetable in the context of Amanda having weak arm positions. He also told them there had been a language barrier. This was accepted by the inquiry,’ said a source close to Pernice.
The actress also said Pernice would say to her that she was a ‘menopausal woman and I’d still f*** you’. In fact, sources close to him claim Abbington would describe herself as ‘a menopausal woman – which was accepted by the investigators in its 30-page report.
There was also no evidence to support the allegation that these words [‘I’d f*** you’] were used in combination with saying Abbington was a menopausal woman as alleged,’ said the review.
‘Gio is a man in his early 30s,’ one tells me. ‘He probably wouldn’t even know what the menopause is or means, let alone dish it out as an insult but that was how Amanda would describe herself to Gio.’
Friends of the former Strictly professional point out that he and Abbington actually did have a jovial friendship.
A friend said: ‘Contrary to what Amanda is now saying, the pair of them had a laugh together a lot.
‘Sadly, she seems to have forgotten this now and appears to want to see him suffer, and the BBC pay up.’