Strictly Come Dancing winner Chris McCausland said he understands why some celebrities clash with their professional dance partners on the show. The BBC dance competition was previously embroiled in drama when Amanda Abbington quit the series before filing complaints about her dance partner, Giovanni Pernice, who she accused of being "abusive" towards her with his teaching methods. The probe upheld six of 17 complaints against Giovanni, 34 – but did not find he had physically abused the Sherlock actress.
Giovanni insisted he was a “strict teacher” but was never a bully. His co-star Graziano Di Prima also left the show after it was revealed he kicked Love Island star Zara McDermott while working with her in 2023. While the show was hit with shocking claims, it returned for another successful series last year. Comedian Chris, who became the first blind person to win the programme with Dianne Buswell, spoke about the situation and said he understood "the idea of feeling emotionally pressured because you’ve all got different objectives.".
He said to The Sunday Times: "Some people’s objective might be to survive another week, whereas from the dancers’ point of view the objective is to succeed because that’s their profession; that’s what their reputation is based on. I can see that there can be a clash.". Chris went on to add that he could "see how people struggled with it in the past, because you've got to be tough." The comedian struggled towards the end of the series as he was doing '15 hours' of training a day, which left him 'broken' from how 'relentless' it was.
Chris previously appeared on Lorraine to chat about winning the dance competition in an interview with stand-in presenter Ranvir Singh. Speaking about the mental and physical toll the months of training had on his body, he said: "It's been a really emotional Saturday night and I'm still feeling quite worn down by it. "It's been three and a half months; it's relentless. It's consuming - physically and mentally it takes a toll. This is what the show does, it wears you down physically and mentally and then it pokes you with a stick until you cry in front of everybody.".
Immediately after winning the show, Chris told Strictly host Tess Daly: "It's astonishing, I don't know what to say. I thought I would go out in the first week or two. We have lasted and lasted and she has got so much out of me, she deserves this so much.". Follow Mirror Celebs on TikTok, Snapchat, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Threads. Get all the Strictly glitter and goss straight to your inbox with our Strictly Come Dancing newsletter.
