Zara McDermott ‘fractured leg during Strictly rehearsals’
Zara McDermott reportedly fractured her leg during Strictly Come Dancing rehearsals last year.
The former Love Island star, 27, was unaware of the extent of her injury at the time and continued to compete with Graziano Di Prima, her dance partner, until they were eliminated.
The news comes after McDermott described her training-room treatment by Di Prima as “incredibly distressing” and his spokesman admitted he “crossed the line” following allegations that he physically and verbally abused McDermott behind the scenes.
The professional dancer left the show earlier this month after a video of a training room incident with the reality show star was shown to BBC bosses. He did not deny kicking her once during rehearsals.
He became the second professional to exit the embattled show after dancer Giovanni Pernice’s departure in June.
The full extent of McDermott’s injury to her left leg from training was only revealed to Strictly executives two weeks ago when she spoke to private investigators amid the BBC inquiry into professional dancers’ behaviour.
A show insider has now told The Sun that McDermott needed painkillers to get through 10-hour training sessions after a stress fracture and severe ligament damage to her leg.
They told the newspaper: “Zara had started getting injured in the build-up to the Hallowe’en dance then something went on [in] the morning, meaning she danced with a fractured leg all that week.
“It was a literal horror show in every sense of the word.”
Sources close to McDermott added: “She started developing a really bad, niggly pain in her left leg at training. The pain got worse and by the last few weeks, she was in agony, popping painkillers before, during and after sessions.
“She made Graziano aware of her discomfort but he was pretty adamant they needed to crack on.
“Obviously they both wanted to get the highest scores possible, and unfortunately she pushed through the pain.”
The TV personality, who wore a moon boot for almost three months at the beginning of the year, reportedly “didn’t want to make a fuss” and only alerted the BBC about what had happened “two weeks ago”.
She is understood to have told investigators about the “beyond” rigorous training which caused a stress fracture in her left leg.
Mark Borkowski, Di Prima’s spokesman, previously said the dancer did not clearly remember the incident but did not deny that there was a kick during training.
“He’s obviously trying to find a way of getting the best out of it and I’m afraid that might have been pushed too far,” he said.
He added that it was an “isolated incident that Mr Di Prima deeply regrets and apologised for at the time … There is never a time when kicking, or any sense of that, is right. He knows that.”
While the dancer “does remember that he was pushing [McDermott] quite hard”, it was “absolute rubbish” to suggest the incident was typical of the couple’s training sessions, he added. Di Prima also denied a report that he spat at McDermott.
Amid the allegations about professional dancers’ conduct on the show, Tim Davie, the BBC director-general, said on Tuesday that his door was open for contestants to speak about their experiences on Strictly.
His offer came after Amanda Abbington, a former contestant, held an emotional interview with Channel 4 News in which she said that her relationship with dancer Pernice quickly became “disastrously unworkable, horribly unworkable”.
She spoke of a “toxic and unsafe” environment and said: “What I experienced in that room happened, I know it happened because it happened to me.
“And I am not a sensational person, I’m not hysterical, I don’t make things out to be bigger than they are. I know what happened to me in that room wasn’t acceptable.”
The Sicilian professional dancer, 33, denies the claims that he had been “abusive, cruel and mean” towards her in the training room and is said to be confident that a BBC review will clear his name.
The Telegraph has contacted Di Prima and representatives for McDermott for comment.