AMANDA PLATELL: The sad truth about Amanda Abbington

Like many Strictly fans, I was bewildered to see actress Amanda Abbington turn up on the BBC‘s flagship political programme Newsnight, welling up as she spoke of the PTSD she was diagnosed with after training sessions with dance partner Giovanni Pernice.

It was just days after the BBC finally published its findings into her allegations against him – some of the claims about verbal bullying and harassment were upheld, but Gio was cleared of the most serious ones of physical aggression.

There she sat, still consumed by the affair. She gave every ­impression that she’d been betrayed and even destroyed by her Strictly experience. Watching, I not only felt very sorry for Amanda, but feared for her.

Forget the findings of the 30-page report. She seems hell-bent on revenge whatever the result of the investigation. She vows this isn’t over, says she’s still in talks with lawyers and could sue the BBC for trauma and loss of earnings. I kept wondering: why can’t she just let it go? The sad truth is that Amanda has always been emotionally fragile.

She’s claimed that after separating in 2016 from her long-term partner Martin Freeman she contemplated ending it all. ‘Suicide was a genuine option for me,’ she admitted, adding: ‘I hated myself. I was a bit of a mess.’

She’s admitted contemplating killing herself ‘quite a few times in my life’, because it would stop her from ‘being this bad person’.

How awful to feel like that. I really do pity her – and her state of mind will not have been improved by the fact that her ex is now loved-up with a new partner 20 years younger than her. All I can say is that, for her own good, she has to stop wallowing.

Give up your deluded venge-fest on Strictly, Amanda. It is only making things worse.

Ahead of her husband Robert Jenrick’s conference speech, wife Michal mouthed ‘I love you,’ while dressed in perfect Barbie pink. Then she held her hand to her heart and blew him a kiss. It’s a Tory leadership campaign, sweetie, not Love Island.

World’s gone Gaga

Mixed reviews for Lady Gaga in the new Batman movie Joker: Folie A Deux, where she appears for 33 of its 138 minutes.

Her character is in an asylum having a love affair with another inmate, the deranged Joker (Joaquin Phoenix), who has multiple ­personality disorder. Some claim it is a sublime modern depiction of mental illness – Folie A Deux translates as a mental disorder between two loved-up lunatics. All so very PC in our woke world.

Yet it leaves us loyalists longing for the days when Batman simply turned up in his skimpy tights and saved the world.

There have been mixed reviews for Lady Gaga in the new Batman movie Joker: Folie A Deux, where she appears for 33 of its 138 minutes 

Despite warnings for weeks from the Government to British families in war-torn Lebanon that they should leave, many have refused and we taxpayers are now spending Lord knows how many millions evacuating them as they plead for rescue. I’m sorry, but if you choose to live in that Hezbollah-infested war zone, and now realise you made a bit of a bad life choice, pick up the tab yourself!

Westminster wars 

The line-up of Tory leadership hopefuls – Tugendhat, Badenoch, Jenrick and Cleverly – reminded me of the game I used to play with my drunken girlfriends perusing the talent in a bar: Which One If You Had To? To which some of us would reply: ‘I’d rather be celibate.’

As for the wooden James Cleverly demanding of lifelong Conservative voters like me to ‘stop being weird’ and ‘be more normal’, I say look in the mirror matey.

How is it that Keir Starmer claims he did nothing wrong and yet pays back £6,000 of his ill-gotten freebies? And that’s just 5 per cent of the £107,145 he’s trousered since he became leader of the Opposition!

In his last-ditch attempt to restore his TV career on Cast Away, Phillip Schofield suggests he was sacked not because of his affair with a much younger male colleague at ITV, but because his brother had been sentenced for sexually abusing a child. As I watched this whinge-fest, was I the only one wishing he might be stuck on his deserted island for ever.

After 100 women claimed they were sexually abused by Mohamed al-Fayed on his premises, Harrods MD Michael Ward – who worked under al-Fayed – says he was ‘not aware’ of ‘any criminality’ and would have acted had he known. Good luck with that defence. I’m not alone in vowing I’ll never again set foot in Harrods again. 

WAG on the attack

Messages between Man City ace Kyle Walker’s wife Annie and her pals reveal she is demanding he pay her £15 million before she considers staying in the marriage.

She also insists that none of her share of his money should be spent on his former mistress Lauryn Goodman and their two children.

Oh, and he should have no contact with them.

Which leaves me wondering whether Annie has at last got the measure of her serial cheat of a husband. She should sting Kyle for all she can get! And then more.

Man City ace Kyle Walker’s wife Annie is demanding he pay her £15 million before she considers staying in the marriage

Amid the horror of the news, a moment of light relief on LBC when presenter Nick Ferrari revealed Kris Kristofferson’s lasting wish was to be remembered as ‘a scholar’ (a Rhodes scholarship to Oxford University), ‘actor’ (with ­Barbra Streisand in A Star Is Born), ‘and songwriter’ (Me And Bobby McGee, Help Me Make It Through The Night). 

As for his eulogy, he’d decided it should be ‘scholar, actor, hillbilly hero’ – because it would leave everyone laughing. 

Ted’s no fan of Taylor’s posh puss

My moggie Ted is appalled that cats costing ­thousands of pounds – like Taylor Swift’s pedigree ‘Ragdoll’ called Benjamin Button – are outselling ordinary British moggies.

Ted, who came from the Battersea Dogs & Cats Home for free, thinks it would be more laudable if Taylor shook off her obsession and embraced a mangy mog from humble beginnings like him – much more rock ‘n’ roll than some ­pampered puss.

Taylor Swift with her very expensive pedigree ‘Ragdoll’ called Benjamin Button

A damning report concludes Covid is to blame for children who were raised in lockdown arriving at primary school aged five still wearing nappies, unable to spell their own name or communicate with other kids or even feed themselves. The sad truth is it’s not Covid that’s to blame, but appalling parenting.

The NHS will be giving 1.6million obese people free doses of Mounjaro, the ‘King Kong’ of weight-loss jabs, while denying cancer and dementia patients new drugs on cost grounds. I’m sorry, but being obese is a lifestyle choice. Alzheimer’s or cancer is not. 

Princess Beatrice is pregnant with her second child, who bewilderingly will become 11th in line to the throne, since Bea’s dad, Prince Andrew, is still eighth in line. Meanwhile, Princess Anne, the hardest-working royal, is currently ­relegated to 17th place. Time for the monarchy to sort out this nonsense before we lose all faith in its future.

Not so top of the shops…

John Lewis’s guarantee is Never Knowingly Undersold. Jolly good.

But as a loyal customer I waited more than a month for a ­mattress topper after being promised it would arrive within five working days, while two kitchen bins ordered in early September, all prepaid, still haven’t arrived. I’m wondering if their guarantee should be Always Knowingly Underdelivered.