Giovanni Pernice admits feeling ‘suicidal’ after Amanda Abbington ‘bullying’ row as BBC Strictly star lifts lid on saga

“Hunched on the sofa of my London flat, I scrolled through my phone as story after story brought bad news, plunging me deeper into depression,” he wrote in the book, titled Taking The Lead, extracts of which were serialised in the Daily Mail.

“Is it worth it? I asked myself. What would happen if I wasn’t here any more? Who would care? Tomorrow, I pledged, I would end it all. My life was over and the emotional pain was becoming unbearable.”

Mr Pernice credited his then-girlfriend Molly Brown with keeping him alive during his darkest moments, describing how she recognised the danger he was in.

“She could see that I was spiralling and she was there to talk to me when I was down,” he wrote. “There were certainly times I would have killed myself if Molly hadn’t been there.”

The Sicilian dancer, who had been riding high after winning the Glitterball trophy with Rose Ayling-Ellis in 2021 and collecting a Bafta, said the fallout with Ms Abbington reduced him to a “burnt-out shell.”

Despite reaching what he described as “the brink of despair,” Mr Pernice said a lesson from his earliest days in dance helped pull him through.

“But my first dance teacher used to say, ‘Never give up’ and that mantra has stuck with me throughout my life. Even when I reached the brink of despair, that little voice told me not to give in.”

In his memoir, Mr Pernice offered his own version of the pair’s working dynamic, claiming that Ms Abbington herself established the nature of their exchanges from the outset.

“In a text message for my 33rd birthday, she called me ‘k**b head’. Our banter involved bad language, jokily calling each other the ‘C’ word,” he wrote.

Pernice added that a BBC producer who allegedly witnessed a video of the exchange asked Ms Abbington whether she was comfortable with it, to which she reportedly replied: “Yeah, of course. I started it.”

Mr Pernice also claimed in the book that Ms Abbington performed a Nazi salute in front of him, characterising it as part of their mutual banter. GB News has contacted Ms Abbington for comment.

He acknowledged there were “moments of tension” but maintained there were “never any arguments” between them, describing his own conduct as supportive and encouraging.

The BBC’s review into Ms Abbington’s complaints examined 16 separate allegations against Mr Pernice. Investigators, who included former Metropolitan Police officers, assessed rehearsal footage and text messages between the pair.

He was cleared on 10 counts, including any suggestion of physical aggression, but six complaints were upheld. The corporation’s report concluded that his language and tone had been “belittling, dismissive and insulting” in a manner deemed disproportionate and unmerited.

The BBC apologised to Ms Abbington and thanked her for coming forward, acknowledging it “would not have been an easy thing to do.”

Days before Mr Pernice’s memoir revelations, it emerged that Ms Abbington had secured a five-figure out-of-court settlement from BBC Studios, along with a contribution towards her legal costs, bringing the dispute to a close without a protracted court battle.

Mr Pernice defended his demanding approach to rehearsals by pointing to his cultural background, writing: “Some celebrities think they can rehearse for only three or four hours a day. But that achieves nothing. I’m Sicilian. I push as much as I can.”

Ms Abbington, 53, who was subsequently diagnosed with PTSD, has spoken of the personal toll the saga took on her.

In a statement issued after the BBC’s findings, she said she had been branded “a liar, a troublemaker” and subjected to “rape and murder threats,” with a bomb threat also sent to her workplace.

She described the corporation’s apology as “a vindication of my complaint,” expressing hope that others who had concerns about their experiences on Strictly would feel empowered to speak out.

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