Mr Pernice claimed that Ms Abbington began to tell conflicting stories about their training sessions in the first week of the show. He said another celebrity contestant told him she had sent messages to others saying that she was uphappy, while thanking Mr Pernice for being an “incredible teacher”.
“I’ve still got [Amanda’s] messages,” he said. “They say ‘thank you so much for your patience today, you’re an incredible teacher’ so I just thought it was all great.
“Then one of the celebrities came to me and said ‘you didn’t have a great week, did you?’ I was like, ‘what are you talking about?’ But Amanda had told them she had a horrible week – and that was week one, before the show had even started.”
He also said the pair were taken to see the show’s producers early on, who had been shocked by the obscenities that the dance partners were using towards each other.
According to Mr Pernice, Ms Abbington was quick to insist that all was fine between them and tell bosses that she “started it”.
He said: “Amanda was a laugh, we were making each other laugh. She would say very bad things like the c-word. She would use it.”
“She’s the person who would start the joke. She would tell a dark joke. That was the banter we had from the beginning, very rude banter,” he added.