Martin Freeman's furious reaction to ex Amanda Abbington's Strictly Come Dancing turmoil
Actress Amanda Abbington has spoken out about her Strictly Come Dancing experience and how her ex Martin Freeman reacted to the "awful" time she had.
Ex-Strictly Come Dancing contestant Amanda Abbington has opened up about the support she received from her ex Martin Freeman during her tumultuous stint on the hit BBC dance show.
Amanda, who is now engaged to stuntman Jonathan Goodwin, was paired with Giovanni Pernice in the previous season of Strictly but exited the competition prematurely, subsequently filing a complaint against the Italian dancer.
The BBC launched an inquiry into Amanda's allegations concerning Giovanni and substantiated "some, but not all" of the claims. Giovanni, who vehemently denies Amanda's accusations, bowed out of Strictly before the 20th series kicked off and is now a professional on the Italian edition of the show.
In a new interview, Amanda disclosed that her ex-partner Martin, father to their two children, was incensed by Giovanni's alleged conduct towards her.
She told The Sun: "Martin said, 'I'm so sorry that you're having to go through this. This is awful. You don't deserve it.' Martin said to me, 'It's so unfair, Amanda, because you would always be like, 'I want to be in that show'. You were so good in it.'"
After Amanda's appearance on Newnight earlier this week, a representative for Giovanni stated: "It's disappointing that Ms Abbington would knowingly mislead the outcome of the report in order to further attempt to damage Giovanni's reputation.
"While Ms Abbington may not like the outcome of the six-month investigation, she should not seek to spread false and defamatory claims."
Martin first met Amanda on the set of the 2000 film Men Only, leading to numerous joint ventures including The Debt, The Good Night, and The Robinsons. They also portrayed Dr John Watson and Mary Morstan in BBC series, Sherlock.
They ended their relationship in 2016 but concealed their split for six months while still filming Sherlock.
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In an emotional reveal to The Sunday Times Magazine, she said: "When we broke up nobody knew, we didn't tell anybody except for a few key people because they had to know, because of the logistics of hotels and stuff. It took six months for it to get out and a lot of that was while we were working on Sherlock... We were professional and we were going to get on and make a show and be civil to each other."
She added: "We still get on really well, we still really both admire each other as actors... he's a great guy, but we just couldn't live with each other anymore."
Speaking openly about how the split took a toll on her emotions during the Full Disclosure podcast, the mother-of-two confessed that she was "a mess" and plagued by deep self-loathing.
Reflecting on her breakup from Martin, she said: "It was breaking up with Martin and then realising I needed to sort myself out because I was a bit of a mess. I hated myself."
Amanda is now set to tie the knot with former stuntman Jonathan Goodwin, whom she met on Twitter in 2021.
The couple first met in person in Vienna, leading to Jonathan popping the question almost instantly during their initial meeting.
Martin has also found new love with French actress Rachel Benaissa, known to some from the BBC hit Normal People, which catapulted Daisy Edgar-Jones and Paul Mescal to fame.
