She keeps falling in love mid-tango - but Flavia Cacace says that in former Strictly partner Jimi Mistry she's finally found her perfect man
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Strictly Come Dancing’s Flavia Cacace is a mass of fluffy wool and smiles when we meet on a chilly afternoon.
‘Everything in my life is so happy at the moment,’ she beams, looking… well, very, very happy. So much so I fear she’d float off into the stratosphere if it weren’t for the shiny new engagement ring keeping her weighted down.
‘I’m a true believer in fate. If it’s meant to happen it will happen,’ she gushes in a starry-eyed-I’ve-met-the-man-of-my-dreams sort of way.
Strictly Comes Dancing's Flavia Cacace can't stop smiling following her exciting engagement news
Which it seems she has. Flavia, who won the last series with Olympian Louis Smith, is engaged to her ‘lovely, sweet, caring’ former Strictly dance partner Jimi Mistry. They met on the 2010 series and fell head-over-heels in love.
Jimi proposed following her recent triumph on Strictly. A deliriously happy Flavia announced the engagement on Twitter at the beginning of the year with, ‘@JimiMistry has made me the happiest girl in the world.’
Now Flavia, 33, tells me she is, by nature, a shy woman. When she first arrived at school in Guildford, Surrey, from her native Italy at the age of four, she couldn’t speak a word of English. ‘The memory I have is not being able to understand what people were saying to me at that age.
'I think you kind of go into self-protection mode a little bit. I’m sure that stays with you. It has to.’ I’m sure it does, but tweeting news of her engagement to her 75,000 Twitter followers doesn’t exactly shriek shrinking violet, does it?
Flavia explains, ‘The reason we tweeted is if we didn’t we knew people would start saying, “are they, aren’t they?” They would see a ring on my finger. We wanted it to be in our words so everyone knew how happy we were. Sometimes it’s better for the statement to come from you.’
Flavia has been misunderstood time and time again since waltzing onto Strictly with her professional dance partner and then fiancé Vincent Simone, particularly when she called the engagement off after falling for her celebrity partner, former EastEnders actor Matt di Angelo, the following year.
‘It’s not going to be pleasant at the end of the day,’ she says. ‘The unfortunate fact was the three of us were on a TV show, which is what made it really difficult. We weren’t expecting the interest and that was hard to digest. Vincent and I had a break from each other professionally – probably two weeks – but our passion for our dance was just too much so we carried on.’
She met Vincent at 16. Again, she says, fate played its part
And they are still going strong – she’s currently appearing in a new West End show with Vincent called Midnight Tango. Today we’re at the studio where they’re rehearsing to talk about her support for the RFU’s campaign to introduce a new generation of men and women to the joys of touch rugby.
The RFU is organising O2 Touch events throughout the country to encourage us all to sign up to one of the fastest-growing sports in the world.
‘Anything to do with exercise and sport I love,’ she says. ‘Touch Rugby is very gentle and, like dancing, you’ve got to be fast on your feet. You’ve got to be agile and it takes your mind off the everyday.’
Flavia, who began Saturday classes in Ballroom and Latin at Hurley’s Dance School in Guildford at the age of five, says she never set out to be a professional dancer but was swept along. She began dancing competitively at 14 after a teacher suggested she ‘give it a go’.
‘I was pretty successful so from then I just carried on,’ she says. ‘People ask me, “When did you decide that’s what you wanted to do?” I never really did. It was just something that was a part of my life. I just did it.
‘I used to be a bit of a perfectionist – I still am,’ she says. ‘When I used to dance I concentrated on technique because I wanted to be as perfect as possible.
‘I think that probably came from my parents. My mum always dressed me nicely. You always had to brush your hair and tie it back. You always had to look neat and tidy. It stays with you, that element of wanting to be precise and do well. Dancing was very much about getting good marks and good comments from the judges.’
She met Vincent at 16. Again, she says, fate played its part. ‘I was looking for a dance partner because mine had stopped dancing and Vincent, who’d started travelling to England [from Italy] was looking for a partner too.
'We were both going to the same dance teacher and another coincidence was we were both from Italy. By that stage I’d lost a lot of my Italian and he could only speak a teeny bit of English so we helped each other with the language and stuff.’
Oh yes, the stuff. Was there an instant chemistry between them? ‘Not immediately,’ she says. ‘The initial thing was we got on really well. Very quickly we became good friends. At first Vincent was renting places to stay in England. We had a spare room at the house and Mum said, “You may as well stay.”
The RFU is organising O2 Touch events throughout the country to encourage us all to sign up to one of the fastest-growing sports in the world
‘We were having lessons, doing competitions at the weekend, rehearsing in the evenings – it was pretty much full-on dance. One thing leads to another. Then we started doing the tango. It just got bigger and bigger and more adventurous.’ And more romantic?
‘I guess it did. It’s the time you spend with somebody. It’s a good way of knowing you are going to get on with somebody because you have to spend a lot of time together under stress.
'It’s not like going out to the cinema. You’re having a dance lesson for competitive reasons so you’re going to be picking at each other. Your feet hurt. Your muscles hurt. It’s not like a normal relationship where you say, “Let’s go for a nice meal and then we’ll go to the bar.”
Flavia says she never set out to be a professional dancer
‘If you go and watch a professional rehearsal you’ve got couples shouting at each other – walking off, storming off, sweating like crazy. You’ll hear effing and blinding. All sorts of things. Emotion is very important, but I think the relationships start because you spend time with that person. You’re in such close proximity.’
Flavia was 27 when she and Vincent stopped dancing competitively and joined Strictly. ‘We wanted new ventures,’ she says. ‘It was definitely the right time. But when you get to your twenties or thirties you’ve changed so much from when you were 16.
‘Initially I was quite quiet. Vincent was always the outgoing one of the two of us. He still is, isn’t he? I’ve grown a lot but it’s almost like you’re growing up next to your brother.
'It makes a really strong friendship because you’re doing everything together and growing up together, but it can become too much. We were just unfortunate that it happened when it happened in a way, but hey, we wouldn’t be here now if it hadn’t.’
Indeed. When Flavia speaks about Vincent she does so with obvious affection. It’s clear she’s delighted they continue to dance together professionally.
‘One thing we appreciate is how much better we are as a dance couple,’ she says. ‘We have a whole new lease of passion for dance. I’ve come out of my shell a lot more and I think that’s helped.’ She shrugs. ‘It is what it is. I’m in such a happy place at the moment.
‘The public see this person who…’ Falls for her partners? She nods. ‘But it’s not who I am. If it’s meant to happen it will happen. You can meet somebody anywhere.’ With which Jimi Mistry’s deliriously happy fiancée floats back to the rehearsal rooms.
Flavia is on a mission to introduce a new generation of men and women to O2 Touch rugby. To find how you can play visit www.rfu.com/o2touch
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