AMANDA Abbington is not alone with PTSD.
After four months and 15 days of relentless coverage of Strictly Come Dancing — scandals, cover-ups, briefings and not a salsa in sight — I think I might have one too.
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Amanda Abbington’s decision to go legal now seems completely justified Credit: Getty
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She claimed that her professional partner Giovanni Pernice harassed and cursed her during training Credit: Getty
Probably you too, dear reader.
I don’t want to be deliberately flippant about the dangers of mental health, but OF COURSE the BBC apologized to Amanda for hurting her feelings.
Because, after 15 years of putting mental health at the forefront of news agendas, here we are now.
The BBC was damned if it did and damned if it didn’t.
READ MORE ABOUT AMANDA ABBINGTON
But whatever your interpretation of yesterday’s mixed inquest findings, Amanda’s decision to file for legal aid, to stick her head above the parapet, now seems fully justified.
The corporation has officially apologized to her for her experiences on their Saturday night main show after she alleged that her pro partner Giovanni Pernice bullied and cursed at her in training.
While Amanda — who was diagnosed with mild PTSD earlier this year, following Elstree — released a heartfelt statement saying she felt “vindicated” for speaking out, pals of the Sicilian dancer were quick to pounce insisting he too was thrilled -ish with the report .
Their spin is this: “Whilst appreciating that the BBC may have decided to back some allegations to avoid accusations of “whitewashing”, they have confirmed the weakest allegations leveled against it.”
Charlotte Moore, the BBC Big Dog – conscious of not rocking the boat – was suitably diplomatic in her response.
She said: “It’s probably worth it to me just to set out the confidentiality of the appeals process, which I think is absolutely integral to the appeals process, and confidentiality should be respected out of fairness to everyone involved.”
Strictly’s Giovanni Pernice has broken his silence after a BBC report confirmed SIX allegations of abuse against him
In other words, after four months and 15 days, nobody actually has a Scooby where we stand.
Fair play to the Beeb for taking this long after all – and hiring two independent investigators to spend hundreds of hours analyzing footage and interviewing former contestants, staff and production – to try and get to the bottom of it.
Lessons have been learned, clearly.
We’ve all learned that ballroom dancing is not for the faint of heart: Ljiljan doesn’t have to apply, thank you very much.
Clearly the BBC also needs to pay more attention to the celebrity dancers it hires. (And the celebrities he pairs them with.)
A cesspool of horrors
Never in a million years should nervous, sarcastic, womanizing supervisor Gio have been paired with such a tender, fragile soul, someone like Amanda. What were the producers thinking?
Not exclusively for the faint of heart: long working hours, brutal physicality. Can the coveted Glitterball winners handle seven million views of them every week, plus the inevitable tirade of abuse on social media?
No amount of media training can prepare stars for the cesspool of horrors that X can bring – Amanda, after all, has had terrible death and rape threats. Nobody deserves that.
If the BBC was hoping this conclusion would draw a line under the matter, it had better think again.
Crucially, this report still leaves the door wide open for other celebrities to come forward – officially – with their concerns, confident that their claims will be taken seriously. That they also receive an apology.
Amanda’s bravery should be applauded – and thanks to her and other celebrities who have spoken out about their time on the show, future generations of Glitterball hopefuls will be protected.
Until now, a woman speaking publicly was considered “problematic” — an adjective that simply wouldn’t apply to a man.
Whatever happened in those rehearsals in the practice room – and we can all agree it probably wasn’t pretty – the face of Strictly Come Dancing changed forever.
Margot as Cathy? Peaks of stupidity
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Barbie star Margot Robbie has been cast as Cathy in the Hollywood version of Hurricane HeightsCredit: Alamy
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Charlotte Riley and Tom Hardy as Cathy and Heathcliff in the 2009 TV version Credit: ITV
MARGOT Robbie, arguably the most beautiful woman on the planet, has been cast as Cathy in the Hollywood version of Hurricane Heights.
Margot, who recently played Barbie, is many things.
But a rustic, bucolic, windswept teenager she is not.
Has anyone making this thing even read the book?
Vat is a great pity for Keira
There has been a LOT of talk about free Keir Starmer and his rampant hypocrisy over the past few weeks.
There is understandably a lot of anger from Sun readers at his decision to accept Taylor Swift tickets and thousands of pounds worth of bangers, while allowing pensioners to freeze to death this winter (or wrap themselves in layers of paid-for clothes).
But keep an eye on young parents, too – the ones who will be most affected by Keir’s VAT increase on independent schools coming in January.
The idea, put forward by the Prime Minister and his cronies, that it is high time that top hat girls were separated for Latin lessons is offensive.
He strikes hard-working, ambitious families, those who do not lay claim to the state or burden the state system.
His upcoming tax will hit everyone – and a Facebook group called Education, not Taxation: Parents Against VAT on School Fees has been flooded with furious parents.
Keir, after all, has paid off his mortgage and earns more than most of those he fines.
His decision to lock himself away in Lord Alli’s palatial flat to let his son sit his exams in peace was, apparently, because he “wasn’t going to let my son fail or not do well in GCSEs because of reporters outside the front door”, as that every Fleet Street reporter was dying to hear about the boy’s geography assignment.
But what about the hundreds of thousands of schoolchildren who will have to leave their schools, be unable to attend their chosen subjects due to overcrowding and have to start all over again, making new friends?
What about their rights to do good?
Boris the dog makes Dil
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Boris Johnson’s dog Dilyn was put down for sympathy for Covid after his master’s battle with the virusCredit: Jon Bond
OF all the revelations in Boris Johnson’s autobiography, surely the biggest is that his dog, Dilyn, was overcome with sympathy for Covid after his master battled the virus.
The former prime minister recalls walking Checkers with the mutt during his recovery.
“It was an effort to climb the stairs, but impossible to climb the hill.
“So I walked on level ground, with our dog Dilyn pulling like a husky, until I noticed to my horror that Dilyn had suddenly succumbed.
“After a few hundred meters, he would lie limp, with a scared tongue.
“I’ve never seen anything like it, and scientist Patrick Vallance later told me his dog was the same. It felt like a medieval chronicle of a plague so severe that even dogs were killed.”
Dilyn – the mutt who ate the late queen’s swan, tried to trample people’s feet in corridors no. 10 and tried it once with Sajid Javid’s cavapoo – needs its own memoir.
It takes a special kind of stupidity to alienate one half of the voting demographic.
But Kemi Badenoch’s casual remark suggesting maternity pay is “excessive” is a surefire way to put a** on young mothers or women thinking about having a baby. Or, well, just women everywhere.
The shadow communities secretary was quick to consider the fact that such a declaration might not be a major election win and made a hasty retreat.
As a side note, the pièce de résistance of her merch campaign is a mug that declares, “There’s nothing wrong with Badenoch.”
LAST Wednesday I went for my quarterly botox refill.
Usually Dr. Brendan hits me in the forehead with it, a little around the eyes, and I’m late.
This time, well, the weather was not kind to me.
“Okay, we need to treat your rested bitch face,” he said, beaming – and four units of the toxin were duly tucked around my wretched chops.
Apparently it’s called “smiling Botox” in South Korea, which sounds a little more palatable.
FINALLY! Security experts are calling for an end to ridiculous, endless passwords – the ones with special characters, numbers, letters, capital letters and your second child’s blood type.
Research shows that the greater the burden on people to remember their passwords, the more they look for shortcuts – leading to potential security hacks.
Categories: Optical Illusion
Source: HIS Education