Giovanni Pernice has responded to his former dance partner Amanda Abbington’s bombshell interview with Channel 4 News, during which she made a number of shocking claims

Strictly Come Dancing’s Giovanni Pernice has hit back at the bombshell accusations made by his former dance partner Amanda Abbington during a tell-all interview with Channel 4 News.

The pro dancer called on fans to “ignore” Amanda’s claims, declaring that the truth would eventually surface.

Giovanni was dramatically dropped from this year’s Strictly roster following ‘bullying’ accusations levelled against him by his 2023 dance partner Amanda.

The actress, best known for her role in Sherlock, alleged she was diagnosed with PTSD after her time rehearsing with Giovanni, referring to it as like ‘being in the trenches.’

As inquiries into the matter by the BBC go on, Amanda joined Krishnan Guru-Murthy on Channel 4 and reiterated her previous allegations about the dancer. She suggested there are ’50 hours of footage’ currently being withheld from her lawyer by BBC executives, reports the Mirror.

Amanda stated: “You know, 50 hours is a lot of footage, and a lot of time spent in a room that was toxic.”

Throughout the interview, Amanda was visibly emotional, sharing that BBC producers expressed their shock at the footage they captured of her time training with Giovanni. Nevertheless, a representative for Giovanni fiercely denied the ‘defamatory allegations’.

They said in a statement: “We would urge people to wait for the review’s conclusion and not to pay heed to these very serious and defamatory allegations that have no evidence in support of them.”

A rep for Giovanni responded: “Giovanni refutes any claim of threatening or abusive behaviour.”

Amanda, in her interview, suggested she wasn’t the only person to complain about Giovanni. She said that she believes six other people have complained before her.

“I know a lot of people went in to speak to them. I’m the official complainer. I think there’s about five or six (other complainants) from what I can gather, but there’s three main people, who’ve made complaints, mine’s the official one,” said Amanda.

In a poignant part of the interview, Krishnan probed: “I heard, not from you, from somebody else, about an instance of, I suppose you’d call it humiliating behaviour of a sexual nature, is that right? ” An emotional Amanda responded: “Yeah. I mean, you know, one of the many things.”

She further confirmed that disturbing threats came from impassioned fans of Strictly and Giovanni.

Following the broadcast of the interview, the BBC issued a statement asserting: “Anyone involved in a complaint has a right to confidentiality and fair process and therefore it would be inappropriate to comment further on individuals. However, when issues are raised with us we always take them extremely seriously and have appropriate processes in place to manage this. As we have said before, we would urge people not to indulge in speculation.”

“More generally, the BBC and BBC Studios takes duty of care extremely seriously. Our processes on Strictly Come Dancing are updated every year, they are kept under constant review and last week we announced additional steps to further strengthen welfare and support on the show.”