The Love Island winner had to withdraw from Strictly Come Dancing after getting a hairline fracture during rehearsals – days before the first live show of the series
Dani Dyer has revealed how her Strictly dance partner, Nikita Kuzmin, took the news of her exit from the show. The dancer was said to be in “complete shock”.
After a fall during rehearsals, Dani had to pull out of the dance competition due to a hairline fracture in her ankle. She recalled the doctor telling her that if she chose to keep dancing, it would get worse and they would be forced to “medically withdraw” her. One of the first people she told about the injury was Nikita.
“I rung Nikita,” Dani said on her podcast, Live and Let Dyers. “Nikita didn’t speak for two minutes. He was in complete shock.” She added that they were both “devastated” about the turn of events.
It was especially difficult as Dani knew from the start that she wanted to be partnered with the Ukrainian dancer. “I met Nikita and I was like, ‘I would really love to dance with Nikita’. He’s incredible, he’s such an amazing dancer. They’re all incredible but just with Nikita – he’s really funny.
“And we really got along and obviously when he came through and I was partnered with him, I was like ‘This is great, the stars are aligned, this is meant to be’.”
Dani also revealed how much not being able to do the show affected her and that she’s been keeping herself indoors because she’s worried for her mental health.
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“Everyone around me was pure devastation, and that’s why I couldn’t leave the house, because I knew if someone said to me ‘are you okay Dani’ I’d just cry. And everyone is so kind and lovely and I could probably stand in the street and cry. But for me mentally, it’s just been really testing my mental health.”
“I needed to grieve it,” she added later. Dani, who is the daughter of actor Danny Dyer, first became a household name in 2018, when she won Love Island. After she was forced to quit Strictly, the show found a last minute replacement in fellow Love Island winner Amber Davies.
There was some controversy about Amber joining the show as her musical theatre work gave her prior dance training and experience, especially since the show already featured Lewis Cope, who has training in hip hop. Chris Robshaw’s wife Camilla took a swipe at Amber and Lewis’ spots on the show in a statement on Instagram.
When praising her husband, she wrote: “Proud forever. Up against people with years of experience when you’ve never even done a 2 step, opening the whole season and starting with one of the hardest dances going. They tested you HARD.”
Another Love Island winner, Amber Gill, also expressed uneasiness at the involvement of people who have danced before: “Unpopular opinion: I think having people with so much dance experience is unfair.” Camilla responded with: “The experience differences are absolutely wild.”
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