Former Strictly star Giovanni: I’m strict but not a bully
Former Strictly Come Dancing professional Giovanni Pernice has said he’s a “strict teacher” but not a bully, after the end of a BBC investigation into allegations about his behaviour in rehearsals.
Actress Amanda Abbington, his dance partner last year, has described his behaviour in the training room as “inappropriate, it was mean, it was nasty, it was bullying”.
After an internal investigation, the BBC apologised to Abbington earlier this month after upholding some of her complaints against him, but clearing him of the most serious allegations.
“Bully is a big word and there’s a difference between being a bully and caring about what you do,” he told ITV’s Lorraine on Tuesday.
When the BBC’s report was published, BBC News was told the review looked into 17 complaints and six were upheld.
A source said those upheld related to verbal bullying and harassment, but the most serious allegations of physical aggression were not upheld.
The report and details of which complaints were upheld have not been published.
Pernice said those that were upheld related to “verbal bullying”, but during the interview he also claimed the investigation “didn’t find me a bully, which is exactly why I’m relieved now”.
He told Lorraine’s guest host Christine Lampard: “I’m glad that the 11 allegations have been thrown out.
“At the beginning there were very serious allegations, for instance threatening her or abusing her, and all of this has been taken out.”
Discussing his training methods, he said: “I’m a strict teacher. I said it myself. I care about my job. I’m very, very competitive. I’ve won the glitterball before. It doesn’t mean that I have to win every time, but I will make sure that I will do everything to get the best out of you.”
Pernice won the show with Rose Ayling-Ellis in 2021, and came second three times in the other seven years before being partnered with Abbington.
Dancing is “a difficult discipline”, he said, but he insisted he wouldn’t change his methods because “teaching the way I teach is the successful way to approach this”.
Pernice admitted getting frustrated in rehearsals, but said that was common for anyone on the show.
“I get frustrated, the celebrity gets frustrated, and trust me when I say every single person on Strictly Come Dancing and Dancing With The Stars in the world would get frustrated because you feel the pressure.
“You feel the pressure that you want to perform perfectly on the Saturday night.
“So frustration, I think, is something that when you want to be good, it happens. And I do care about my job.”
He described Abbington as “brilliant” and “unbelievable at dancing”, and said she didn’t discuss her complaints with him at the time.
“All I had was, ‘Giovanni you’re an amazing teacher’, ‘Giovanni you’re great’.”
He added: “We never had an argument. We always had discussions about steps.”
Abbington’s account of their time together differs significantly.
Following the conclusion of the BBC’s report, she told the BBC’s Newsnight it had been “an ongoing litany of being verbally abused”.
“There was a 35-minute rant at me with him throwing his hands up in the air and calling me names and telling me all sorts of things that I was and how he couldn’t really cope with it any more,” she said.
“And this went on for, you know, seven hours a day, for seven weeks.”
On Lorraine, Pernice responded that “there is so much that is not true in these things” and “I never called her names in that room”.
In a separate interview with the Daily Mail, Pernice admitted the pair shared “very rude banter” and that producers were concerned by some of the names they were calling each other. But he claimed she told them: “It’s absolutely fine, I started it.”
He said he had not spoken until now because the BBC had asked both sides not to until the investigation was over.
He was angered, however, by an interview Abbington gave to Channel 4 News in July, he told the Mail.
During that interview, host Krishnan Guru-Murthy – who also took part in last year’s series – suggested she had been subjected to “humiliating behaviour of a sexual nature”.
She tearfully agreed that was the case, but said it was not sexual harassment, and that it was “one of the many things” that happened.
In the Mail, Pernice said: “My Sicilian blood would rise up and I’d think, this isn’t the truth – but I had to remain silent.
“It was the first time there was talk of anything sexual. Of course, I was worried it could destroy my career – the people that come to my shows are kids and women.
“I was painted as a person I am not. It seemed like the only point was to destroy me.”
