Strictly's Amanda Abbington says ex Martin Freeman 'wanted to kill' Giovanni Pernice
Amanda Abbington has spoken out following the result of the BBC's investigation into her claims against Giovanni Pernice, some of which were upheld and others weren't. Sharing what her ex, Martin Freeman, thought of the ordeal, she has claimed that the actor 'wanted to kill' dancer Giovanni.
“Martin said, 'I’m so sorry that you’re having to go through this. This is awful. You don’t deserve it. I want to kill him’," explained Amanda while talking to The Sun. She continued: "Martin said to me, ‘It’s so unfair, Amanda, because you would always be like, ‘I want to be in that show’. You were so good in it’".
Meeting in 2000, Amanda and Martin share two children; a son Joe and a daughter Grace, and were together in 2016. Opening up about her split previously, Amanda told The Sunday Times Magazine: ”When we broke up nobody knew, we didn't tell anybody except for a few key people because they had to know, because of the logistics of hotels and stuff.
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"It took six months for it to get out and a lot of that was while we were working on Sherlock... We were professional and we were going to get on and make a show and be civil to each other."
She added: "We still get on really well, we still really both admire each other as actors... he's a great guy, but we just couldn't live with each other anymore." She is now in a relationship with former stuntman Jonathan-Goodwin.
Last week, a review into allegations made by Amanda against Giovanni, her dance partner last year, resulted in six out of 17 complaints being upheld - leading to a BBC apology to Amanda.
The report concluded that Giovanni had 'verbally bullied and harassed' Amanda, but he was cleared of any 'physical aggression' towards her. By this time, Italian professional dancer Giovanni had already left the show and has since joined Italy's version of Dancing with the Stars - Ballando con le Stelle.
Despite the results of the six-month BBC review now being public, the specifics of the findings remain confidential. However, Amanda's interview with Newsnight's Victoria Derbyshire earlier this week has caused further upset. It's been claimed that many BBC employees were unaware it was happening and Giovanni's team reportedly found out just minutes before it aired on Wednesday night, leaving them 'furious', reports the Mirror.
During the interview, Amanda, 50, claimed she experienced an 'ongoing litany of verbal abuse, sexual innuendo' that were not 'isolated one-off incidents', as well as a '35-minute rant at me with him throwing his hands in the air and calling me names'. She described her time on Strictly as 'one of the worst years' of her life.
