To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web
browser that
supports HTML5
video
Giovanni Pernice has claimed he had a ‘small revenge’ on Amanda Abbington by winning Strictly Come Dancing in Italy.
Pernice, 35, was promoting his memoir Gio: Taking The Lead, on This Morning when he growing frustrated with presenter Craig Doyle who challenged him over the scandal which engulfed the dancing competition.
A BBC probe was launched into Sherlock star’s complaints and found ‘some, but not all’ should be upheld.
Upheld complaints included those of verbal bullying and harassment, with Giovanni’s language called ‘belittling, dismissive, and insulting’. He was cleared of claims of physical aggression.
But speaking to Doyle and his co-host Christine Lampard, Pernice said it was time to tell his ‘side of the story’.
Wake up to find news on your TV shows in your inbox every morning with Metro’s TV Newsletter.
Sign up to our newsletter and then select your show in the link we’ll send you so we can get TV news tailored to you.
Doyle pointed out that while some allegations were dropped, cases of ‘verbal bullying’ were upheld.
In response, Pernice said that while he couldn’t repeat one of the words he used but insisted it was a word that ‘every day, all of us we use’.
‘Again, it is the tone set in the room. If you use that tone to me, I use the same tone to you,’ he said.
Pernice revealed he’d even considered suicide while waiting for the findings of the BBC investigation and his book was for all the people who supported him.
‘I appreciate it was a difficult time for you personally. It was also a difficult time for Amanda,’ Doyle maintained, with Pernice agreeing: ‘Absolutely.’
Doyle continued: ‘She wouldn’t have gone through the whole process had she not felt there was something in it,’ while referencing Abbington’s ‘pay-out’ from the BBC and her allegations that Pernice was ‘underplaying things’.
‘Everybody sees it differently, isn’t it?’ Pernice hit back. ‘I’m just talking factual. The investigation – this is what was upheld, this was what was not upheld. We both know what is the truth.’
