Amanda Abbington was at it again at the weekend, crying her eyes out over her Strictly PTSD experience.
His familiar face – hair slicked back, eyes swollen from crying – appeared on the front page of a red-edition newspaper on Sunday alongside the headline: “BBC let bully Gio get away with murder.”
Inside, they gave us once again the updated script of a psychodrama that she has been writing, directing and starring in for months, a production in which she plays the eternal victim who fights against the injustices of a misogynistic world, the self-proclaimed excellence. Me too heroin.
If anyone thought the matter had been settled with last week’s publication of the BBC’s five-month investigation into her allegations of abuse at the hands of her Strictly dancing partner Giovanni Pernice, this illusion was immediately shattered by the interview she granted to the BBC. Newsnight shortly after its launch.
Amanda has previously spoken out about what she claims was her ordeal on last year’s Strictly.
But there was a new twist. The headline for his interview read: “Gio’s Ordeal Was So Toxic, Cancer Fear Was a Relief.”
Fear of cancer? That’s news! In this latest installment of the soap opera Amanda, she finally reveals the real which is why she mysteriously quit the 2023 series of Strictly in Week Five, citing unspecified ‘medical reasons’, when she was set to reach the final.
Apparently, she had discovered two lumps in her right breast.
How horrible for her. And how right for her to put her health first and leave the show for her own sake and that of her two children, Joe, 18, and Grace, 16.
As someone who, like millions of other women, has suffered such a scare, I immediately felt compassion for Amanda.
Fortunately, the lumps I had found turned out to be benign, as were mine.
So, did the root causes of Amanda’s PTSD occur before or after the breast cancer scare? I’m as confused as anyone else.
Amanda Abbington on Newsnight, where she spoke about her cancer fear
In her weekend interview, she said, “That’s what I was thinking, that (breast cancer) was a healthier option than being in that room.”
But we now know that when she told Gio her fears about cancer, he was nothing but understanding and understanding.
She immediately called doctors she knew who might be able to help her, and she was touched and grateful for their kindness.
I am told that there may be two sides to this story and that more will emerge, namely that his language was somewhat rude towards Giovanni.
We’re not so holy anymore, are we, Amanda? However, we still don’t know when the dreaded post-traumatic stress disorder actually appeared.
“Before that, I was very excited,” she said over the weekend. ‘Everyone else on the show was wonderful, but 80 percent of the time it was morbid, horrible, and toxic. I kept crying, shaking, and feeling anxious, tingly, and panicked.’
Amanda Abbington and Giovanni Pernice in last year’s Strictly series
Given her relentless smear campaign against Giovanni over the past year, it’s starting to seem like that’s all Amanda does: cry, panic, and play the victim.
Call me cynical, but isn’t she doing pretty well adding fuel to the fire this way?
Let’s be frank: few of us (including myself) had heard of her before the Strictly scandal broke, despite her distinguished but rather disappointing 30-year career in television and theatre.
Who can remember his TV roles from last year in Inside No 9, The Spaceman, The Family Pile or Das Netz – Prometheus? No, me neither.
I vaguely remember her in Mr Selfridge, blink and you missed her in The Bill and Casualty, and sadly I didn’t get to see her in her stage roles in God Of Carnage and The Unfriend.
She is currently performing to half-empty houses at a North London theater in When It Happens To You, a play based on the true story of a distraught mother trying to keep her family together after a traumatic event.
Does this art imitate life? I guess pretty much all Amanda has to do in the lead role is cry and rant about the injustices of the world. If so, you run the risk of being pigeonholed.
Amanda was only briefly memorable for her role in the television series Sherlock, in which she played the wife of the detective’s legendary partner, Dr. Watson.
Watson, of course, was played by her then-partner Martin Freeman, the now billionaire Hobbit actor.
Which brings me to another of his accusations against Gio.
Abbington said her ex Freeman, now in love with a French actress half her age, gave her full support during her Strictly ‘trial’.
This involved at least a 45-minute phone call in which he reassured her by saying, “I’m sorry you have to go through this.” This is horrible. You don’t deserve it. I want to kill him.’
But if he felt so strongly, why did Freeman decide not to speak publicly in Amanda’s defense?
Could it be that he fears what in Hollywood they call ‘reputational damage’?
And why did so many women strictly support Gio behind the scenes, according to insiders?
Chief judge Shirley Ballas made her unwavering support for Gio public and unequivocal, and although the show’s star presenters Claudia Winkleman and Tess Daly have made no public pronouncements on the matter, they are believed to have sympathized with his plight.
Senior executives at Strictly are also believed to have supported the professional dancer.
It was only after giving ironclad assurances of Giovanni’s suitability that he was given the go-ahead to perform for millions of fans on the Italian version of Strictly, Dancing With The Stars.
Meanwhile, us British Strictly fans have lost one of our most beloved dancers. It’s no surprise that the show’s viewing figures have plummeted.
The truth is that the battle for the shiny ball has been overshadowed by an increasingly embarrassing pity party presided over by Amanda playing the leading role of her life in a film that might as well be called Stricken By Strictly.