Giovanni Pernice will not return for the new series of Strictly Come Dancing, the BBC has confirmed.
The 33-year-old Italian dancer has performed on the BBC One primetime show for nine years.
Image: Pernice with actress Amanda Abbington in 2023. Pic: BBC
He was not announced as part of the show’s line-up of professional dancers for 2024 following reports he would not compete.
Pernice has rejected allegations he displayed “abusive or threatening behaviour” while working as a professional dancer on the show, following complaints about his conduct.
A legal firm acting on behalf of the complainants said the broadcaster is “evidence gathering” – but the BBC has not confirmed any probe has been launched.
A statement from law firm Carter-Ruck said: “There have been numerous serious complaints made to the BBC who are now in the process of evidence gathering.
“As it is still an ongoing matter no further comment can be made at this stage.”
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The Sun, which was the first to report suggestions that an investigation was underway, had claimed Pernice quit the show.
In his first year on the show, Sicily-born Pernice reached the grand final with Coronation Street star Georgia May Foote.
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He was last paired with Sherlock actress Amanda Abbington, who withdrew from the competition in 2023 citing “personal reasons“.
Image: Pernice lifted the Glitterball Trophy alongside Rose Ayling-Ellis in 2021. File pic: PA
In 2021, Pernice lifted the Strictly glitterball trophy alongside EastEnders star Rose Ayling-Ellis, who was the first deaf contestant to win.
He also reached the final in 2017 with Debbie McGee and in 2018 with Faye Tozer.
Pernice also holds the Guinness World Record for most jive kick and flicks in 30 seconds, which he achieved on the BBC’s Strictly It Takes Two show in 2016.
Image: Pernice and Nadiya Bychkova perform during the Strictly Come Dancing Professionals UK Tour. File pic: PA
In May, Pernice wrote that “you will be as surprised as I am that allegations have been made about my dance teaching methods in the media this week” adding that the public has seen him “passionate and competitive” on the show.
He went on: “No-one is more ambitious for my dance partners than me. I have always striven to help them be the very best dancers they can be.
“This has always come from a place of love and wanting to win – for me and my dance partners.”
Pernice has said he looks “forward to clearing my name”.
It is “pretty surreal”, Academy Award winner Reese Witherspoon admits, finding herself at the top of The New York Times bestsellers list.
When I meet the actress alongside her co-writer, best-selling author Harlan Coben, overnight the pair have learned that their thriller is now at number one.
He jokes: “I was texting her last night and saying you’ll now have to call yourself number one bestselling novelist, forget about Oscar winner!”
Image: Reese Witherspoon and Harlan Coben told Katie Spencer about their novel Gone Before Goodbye
As one of the most successful authors in the world, Coben has sold over 80 million books to date, while for Witherspoon this is new ground.
Not content with running a hugely successful production company responsible for a string of hits, as well as one of the most successful book clubs in the world, she explains she felt compelled to give writing a try.
“People want you to stay in your lane… as a creative person I think it’s impossible to just choose one kind of life.
“Creativity is infinite and who I was as a creative person when I was 20 is very different from the person I am now at 49.”
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Gone Before Goodbye, a thriller about a talented surgeon who finds herself caught up in a deadly conspiracy, is the result of Witherspoon daring to put her head above the parapet.
Image: Witherspoon says she felt compelled to give writing a try
Coben admits he was “a little wary” at first.
“I don’t co-write novels but when she made the pitch and started talking about it, I was like ‘dang that’s good, we can do something with that’.”
While countless celebrities work with ghostwriters, Coben says: “I said to her from day one ‘it’s only going to be you and me in here… no third person in here, I don’t do that’. So every word you [read] comes from Reese and me.”
Image: Coben has sold over 80 million books to date, while for Witherspoon this is new ground
Witherspoon explains: “He was like ‘if we’re going to do this, it’s going to have to be at a really high level because people going to expect a lot, so our bar was really high.”
“I said to her, in the beginning, novels are like a sausage,” Coben laughs. “You might like the final taste, but you don’t want to see how it was made and Reese got to see the full sausage getting made here.”
When it came to writing, Coben says they “fell into a rhythm right away”, working together in three-hour stints, “back and forth with a yellow legal pad – what about this? What about that?”
Image: Coben says they ‘fell into a rhythm right away’
Witherspoon says it “feels really deeply personal” to have their work now in print.
“Usually, as an actor, I walk into other people’s worlds and it’s already set up… but this was creating the whole world with Harlan and just from beginning to end feels very personal.”
While the story seems an obvious fit for being adapted to the screen, perhaps with a certain blonde actress in the leading role, Coben says that was never their intention.
“The biggest, biggest mistake novelists make when you write a book is to say ‘this would make a really great movie’. A book is a book, a movie is a movie, and we both focused on wanting this to be just a great reading experience.”
Given that their collaboration is already selling in big numbers, will the pair team up again to write a second?
Witherspoon says: “Let’s just see what people think of this one first.”
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Associate professor of neurology Dr Laura Stein told Sky’s US partner NBC News: ” The most well-described risk factors include a predisposition [family history of aneurysm], high blood pressure, cigarette smoking and inflammation.”
She went on to explain that most fatal ruptured aneurysms are in the brain, killing about one in three patients.
“When it’s a blood vessel that’s in the head and it bleeds, there’s a much higher risk of having a very bad problem just because the brain is enclosed in a fixed space,” Dr Stein added.
Low-risk aneurysms are monitored by doctors for growth or abnormalities, and there are a series of potential treatment options for those considered dangerous.
Elsewhere in The Kardashians clip, Kim admitted that her ex-husband Kanye West will be in her life “no matter what” because of the four kids they share together.