It was a moment Giovanni Pernice wasn’t sure would ever happen again. With a new dance partner at his side, he returned to the rehearsal room this week, preparing for another glitterball trophy.
But there is one major change. This year, Giovanni’s training will take place in Rome, where the ballroom star is preparing to appear on the Italian version of the show, Ballando con le Stelle (Dancing With The Stars), after some at the BBC spoke highly of him to the programme’s European producers.
It will be Giovanni’s tenth Strictly stint, but his first outside his adopted home of Britain. Giovanni, friends say, is “beyond happy” and there is a clear feeling that this is the dancer’s time for revenge after Amanda Abbington, his partner on last year’s series, made incendiary claims that he bullied her when they trained together.
One of his friends tells me: ‘I guess you could see it as a kind of sweet revenge. He was adored by Strictly viewers but he left because of Amanda’s claims – but in his eyes it’s all a win-win for Italy.’
Amanda Abbington made inflammatory claims that Giovanni Pernice bullied her during training
Amanda hired notoriously aggressive lawyer Carter Ruck to represent her and filed an official complaint in April, prompting the BBC to launch an investigation.
Giovanni resigned, but not before hiring Schillings as his law firm.
And although the 20th anniversary series of Strictly starts tonight on BBC1, the outcome of the broadcaster’s investigation is still pending. So it’s been a tumultuous time for the Sicilian-born star. But, friends say, he’s finding happiness again – on the dancefloor.
His partner in the Italian show is the beautiful 43-year-old singer and actress Bianca Guaccero. On her Instagram account, she posted a photo of the couple training, to the background music of Dirty Dancing’s (I’ve Had) The Time of My Life. She captioned the photo: ‘The beginning.'[sic]
“Gio is having a great time,” says a friend of the star. “He’s so happy, it’s his way of moving on from the whole sad situation.”
‘He is so happy that he can continue dancing and what makes it even better is that it can be in his home country. [The past few months have been] absolutely horrible for Gio. He was stuck in purgatory. This will be a nice boost for him.’
Sources close to Giovanni, 34, say he ‘really hopes’ to win the series, in what he says is the ultimate response to accusations made against him by former Sherlock actress Amanda.
‘Gio is so happy to be back in action, it’s a testament to his strength of character. He could have collapsed at any moment, but he persevered and now he really wants to win.
‘He is determined that he and Bianca will do their best and they get along very well during training.’
This year, Giovanni’s training will take place in Rome, where the ballroom star is preparing to appear in the Italian version of the show, Ballando con le Stelle (Dancing With The Stars).
His partner in the Italian show is the beautiful 43-year-old singer and actress Bianca Guaccero
Giovanni’s friends say it wasn’t easy for him to rush back into a rehearsal space. The last time he did, it ended with Amanda, 52, accusing him of being “abusive, cruel and mean,” which he denies.
She also accused him of bruising her foot and in an interview with Channel 4 News in July, Amanda compared Strictly to “the trenches” and suffered “degrading behaviour of a sexual nature” – which Giovanni also says is untrue.
None of the previous 21 series started under such a dark cloud.
So what happened to the BBC’s report into Amanda’s allegations? The inquiry began in April, but sources say the delay is partly due to BBC chiefs’ fear that – whatever the conclusion – it will prove a toxic moment for the Corporation.
They fear that if Giovanni is acquitted, it will appear as if they do not believe a woman.
But if Amanda’s complaints are upheld, Giovanni could sue the BBC for failing in its duty of care by not requiring celebrity contestants to undergo psychological evaluations before taking part, as is common on other reality shows.
The BBC was expected to inform the pair of the outcome of their investigation before the new series began.
The ideal time would have been before the publicity for the new series began in the summer. Now the Strictly team are faced with the worst possible outcome: that the investigation will be the only thing everyone will talk about in this series.
If the verdict is handed down – and it is expected to happen during the series that concludes a week before Christmas – it will become the entire focus of the current show.
“It’s a nightmare for the BBC,” said an insider who works there.
“People keep saying it’s going to happen this day or that day. The truth is, nobody knows. There’s a good chance they’ll decide to reserve the verdict until next year, which is far from ideal for either side.”
Since Amanda went public with her complaints, it appears she has been reaching out to former contestants to ask if they would also like to come forward.
The Sicilian-born dancer and his famous partner, actress Amanda Abbington, in the latest series of Strictly Come Dancing
Several have done so: table tennis player Will Bayley claimed that a jump he was trying to perfect for the 2019 series was labelled “rubbish” by his pro partner Janette Manrara during rehearsals. He says he badly injured his leg trying to do it better. The Paralympic athlete said he was encouraged to jump off a table, despite his and his coach’s concerns. Meanwhile, Laura Whitmore, Giovanni’s partner in 2016, said last month that things she tried to talk about during her time on the show eight years ago “are all coming out now”.
She said she was “manipulated to make it seem normal.”
Interestingly, the show’s producers struggled to attract female contestants this year. There were only six, and they don’t appear to be household names like Annabel Croft and Angela Rippon who took part last year.
Instead, celebrities including Tasha Ghouri from ITV2’s reality show Love Island have signed up, plus former The Only Way is Essex star Pete Wicks and JB Gill, who sang in the now-defunct pop band JLS. Bigger names have been limited to former England footballer Paul Merson, DIY SOS presenter Nick Knowles and singer Toyah Willcox.
“We don’t expect such high viewing figures this year,” one employee admitted.
Like Britain’s Strictly, the Italian version airs once a week, with the live shows starting a week after ours. It’s filmed in a much more glamorous location than Elstree Studios in Hertfordshire – set in a beautiful 19th-century theatre in the Foro Italico complex in Rome.
For Giovanni, things are currently looking as sunny as the Roman sky above his training studio.
Bianca is a household name in Italy with millions of fans. She also seems to be single after her divorce from film director Dario Acocella, with whom she has a daughter, Alice. She and Giovanni seem to get along very well.
A friend of Giovanni said: ‘He is very happy with this partner and the expectations are that they will do well’.
However, it appears Giovanni’s return was a close call. It was only last month that it was feared the Italian show would not sign him until the BBC investigation was complete. Some within the BBC have reportedly spoken out in Giovanni’s favour, saying he was not a bully but ‘just someone who wants to win’.
His Italian job means he’s spending time away from his home in west London this autumn. “The change of scenery will do him a world of good,” says a friend. It feels like he’s starting something new, but still doing what he loves.
“If Amanda thought she was going to destroy him, she was wrong.”
