Strictly star breaks silence on Zara McDermott claims
Former Strictly Come Dancing star Kristina Rihanoff has spoken out about Graziano Di Prima’s axing from the show as she shared her heartbreak for Zara Mcdermott.
The BBC have confirmed that production staff will be present in all future rehearsals following complaints about the behaviour of two former professional dancers during training.
Professional dancer Graziano Di Prima will not return to this year's series of the BBC hit dance competition due to claims of "gross misconduct".
During Wednesday’s episode of Lorrinane Kelly’s ITV breakfast show, former pro Kristina make an appearance and admitted that the recent reports about Graziano are ‘disturbing’.
Lorraine started off by saying: “Kristina what do you think of all this and the Idea that we should have chaperones at all times.” Kristina said: “All of this is very distressing for a lot of Strictly fans to read and for someone who worked on the show for eight years, for me it is very disturbing and upsetting.”
Kristina said: “All of this is very distressing for a lot of Strictly fans to read and for someone who worked on the show for eight years, for me it is very disturbing and upsetting.”
Addressing Zara’s public statement, the dancer continued: “For me as a woman it was heartbreaking that she actually suffered so much stress and abuse. It is never ok in any shape or form that should be allowed and it’s just very sad that she had to leave it for a whole year.”
Speaking on the recent measures taken by BBC bosses to guarantee stars’ safety, Kristina said: "It's never okay. It's very sad... from my point of view, if you have cameras there, you do have a member of staff always there. My years on Strictly, we've always had a production crew filming every second of rehearsals and that was the case in all my eight years on the show.”
She added: “If the cameras are there all the time, you can’t get away from what is being filmed because there is evidence on the video and I think it should have been done like that previously.”
Lorraine asked: “Do you think it’s a different show compared to when you were there?” Kritian admitted: “I think the show is very different right now and I also have to say that when I was hired for the show I had to go through a very strict process and I had experience in teaching.
“The professionals now might be good dancers but it isn’t the main job - the main job is to teach and teach that person in a way where they can progress on the show and that is the main job.”
She added: “At the end of the day it’s about your teaching ability and I think that some of the pros are very young and they probably don’t have their teaching experience so now the BBC having all these issues can they present that they have seen all the paperwork to confirm that we are professionals and letters of support from organisations.”
Lorraine airs weekdays at 9am on ITV
