Strictly's tearful Kristina Rihanoff: Why IS the finger always pointed at the woman?
Unless Kristina Rihanoff is as good at acting as she is at dancing then the tears pouring down her cheek are the real thing.
Her hands fly to her eyes and she starts to dab at the two charcoal rivulets of mascara staining her face.
She hunches the shoulders of her 5ft 2in frame to stifle a loud sob and suddenly the Siberian Siren seems frail and sad and really rather vulnerable.
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Strictly Come Dancing star Kristina Rihanoff (pictured) is distressed that photos of England rugby hero Ben Cohen leaving her flat, after apparently spending the night, have seen her branded a marriage wrecker
The Strictly Come Dancing star is distressed that the publication on Monday of photographs of England rugby hero Ben Cohen leaving her flat, after apparently spending the night, have seen her branded a marriage wrecker.
Speaking exclusively to The Mail on Sunday, Kristina, 37, said: ‘We are both single people. We enjoy each other’s company. We work together.
‘Who knows what the future will hold. I do not owe it to the whole country to speak about my private life because it’s just that, private.’
And that sounds a lot like she wants Cohen to be in it. In her stellar eight years at Strictly she has had a fling with fellow professional Vincent Simone and a four-year relationship with boxing champion Joe Calzaghe.
Cohen's marriage foundered after he partnered Kristina in the 2013 series of Strictly (pictured on the show)
She admits: ‘I am a normal human being, maybe I have not always done the right thing. I make mistakes but I do not have to be crucified for them. My past should be allowed to be my past.
‘People say I don’t care about criticism but I do, I do care, it makes me cry for days, for weeks. Those who know me closely tease me and say I should trademark the Siberian Siren tag and create a perfume or a lingerie line but I don’t want to because it’s not me.’
She added: ‘It’s like I’ve been drawn as a man-eater and now I am not allowed to be anything other than that, the single girl who is to blame for other couples’ problems.
‘Why do people point the finger at the woman and never the man?’
‘Recently, during the show, Susanna Reid and Rachel Riley’s relationships fell apart and they were the targets, portrayed in the worst possible way.
Kristina Rihannoff and Ben Cohen pictured outside her home on Monday night
‘If you are a little bit successful, a little bit strong, then you are torn to shreds. It is always the woman who gets the blame. There are double standards at work even now in 2015 when we should be beyond that.
‘A woman will be called all the names under the sun, a guy gets, “Oh … he’s just a man being a man.” It would be nice to be treated equally.
She continues: ‘I have borrowed Kate Moss’s policy of never complain never explain but after seven years of abuse I feel I have to say something in my own defence. I long for my work as a dancer and a choreographer to speak for itself but instead this scrutiny of my private life means my hopes have all come undone.’
That scrutiny is now focused on her relationship with Cohen whose marriage foundered after he partnered Kristina in the 2013 series of Strictly.
She says: ‘When I was paired with Ben I had just come out of my relationship with Joe and I was not in a good place emotionally. I did not go to therapy – perhaps I should have done – but I felt comfortable talking to him about it.
Scrutiny is now focused on her relationship with Cohen whose marriage foundered after he partnered Kristina in the 2013 series of Strictly
‘Through his anti-bullying foundation, Ben has experience of talking to vulnerable people and helping them. He is kind and supportive and encouraged me to move forward by doing a great job on the show.
‘It’s very intense doing Strictly – you work together, you spend your lunch break together, he was the only person I had time to speak to.
‘He told me, “Kristina, put your heart and soul into your passion for dance…”
‘I felt safe opening up to him. The perception of people who talk to me is that I am amazingly strong and that I’ll always be fine, like there’s no other option for me. With Ben, I felt like I could communicate with him, ask him for his advice, discuss my issues and insecurities.’
Kristina does not deny they remain close and the couple are committed supporters of each other’s charity work, with Ben backing Kristina’s Dot Com Children’s Foundation.
This led to them being photographed together on a Tube train in London last June, heading home from a rehearsal studio where they’d taught a lesson that was auctioned in a fundraising event.
The pictures hinted at intimacy back then but Kristina is adamant they were innocent.
‘When I was told about the pictures I was not really worried, I had no issue, no fear, because there was nothing in them which could be bad.
‘After that trip Ben went to Euston station to catch a train and I went home, that’s it.
‘I was upset and angry at how it was portrayed and I think the timing was suspicious.’
The snap, taken in June, was first printed in September the day before the launch of the 2014 series of Strictly in which Kristina was to enjoy a hugely successful partnership with Simon Webbe from boy band Blue.
The fallout did nothing to damage her career – she and Webbe eventually came second – but it coincided with a pause in Cohen’s marriage.
Lawyers for the rugby star, a member of England’s 2003 World Cup-winning squad, announced he and wife Abby would ‘take some time apart to deal with some marital issues’.
There was intense speculation that the ‘issues’ included his friendship with Kristina.
Cohen and his wife announced their separation and Kristina held crisis talks with Strictly’s producers at the BBC.
Showbusiness gossip suggested she was warned about her behaviour and told it had the potential to damage Strictly’s wholesome family brand. It is something Kristina denies.
Lawyers for the rugby star announced he and wife Abby would ‘take some time apart to deal with some marital issues’.There was intense speculation that the ‘issues’ included his friendship with Kristina
She says: ‘I called that meeting because I wanted to talk about it, to say it was uncomfortable for me but that I was fully committed to the job despite having a turbulent time in the media. They were very empathetic, said they valued me as a dancer and a teacher and told me, “We are there for you”.’
But the damage was done, at least to Kristina’s personal reputation. Online abuse labelling her a home-breaker was so hysterical she contemplated ending her life last September.
She recalls: ‘I felt so depressed and unhappy. My mum was reading all this stuff about me, some of it while she was in hospital with a cancer scare, how do you think that felt?’
As she discusses recent events she appears softer than her super-glamorous show persona suggests.
Without the bouffant hair, fake tropical tan and stage make-up she looks professional and businesslike, in a dark jacket and red top.
She does not see herself as the architect of all of her own troubles and genuinely regrets the brief relationship with Simone which helped create the reputation she now loathes. ‘All stories have two sides,’ she says.
In her liaisons with fellow Strictly stars, Kristina is far from alone. Since the franchise was born there’s been a trail of broken marriages across the globe because of the intimacy the show creates.
And the closeness of the dancing partners is not manufactured for the cameras. The couples work together for up to 16 hours a day, their dancing demanding hyper emotion and eroticism if it is to score winning marks.
Ben Cohen and Kristina Rihanoff dance the Rumba to 'Make You Feel My Love' during 2013's Strictly
Then add to that the allure stardom bestows. As judge Craig Revel Horwood said last year: ‘Being up close and personal all day every day, working on some sexy moves together, it’s almost inevitable.’
Kristina’s journey towards Strictly stardom began in Vladivostok where she supported her impoverished parents by giving dance lessons.
Spotted in competition she was headhunted to move to America in 2001, and make her name on the world’s dance stages.
She debuted on Strictly in 2008 partnering political broadcaster John Sergeant who became so popular for his terrible dancing that the couple were forced to withdraw before they won.
On the post-show tour she had a month-long affair with show professional Simone who cheated on his pregnant girlfriend to be with Kristina.
She said: ‘He made my life hell. He chose to lie to both me and his girlfriend by acting like a single person. I was the new girl desperate to fit in with that group of dancers. I had no reason not to trust him, it was his responsibility to tell me he was in a relationship. It was awful, like a cruel joke, I felt completely played and I regret it.
‘I blame myself for not seeing the reality, for only hearing what I wanted to hear. It was extremely damaging and I did not want to come back to Strictly. I only returned because the producers asked me to, promising it would blow over.’
Kristina with ex-boyfriend boxer Joe Calzaghe
And it did, but Kristina then tossed a huge firelighter back into the embers of the row by embarking on a relationship with Joe Calzaghe a year later.
Calzaghe’s model girlfriend of five years said the boxer dumped her when he started training with Kristina. Kristina maintains that Calzaghe was newly single when they first met.
She says: ‘His girlfriend dragged me into it by saying she had hoped he’d go back to her but it just wasn’t true. Lots of people meet their partner at work and my work is dancing. Joe and I had a wonderful life together even though being in the public eye was hard.
‘When the relationship is mentioned now it’s always from a negative perspective and that’s not right, we were committed and happy for a long time.’
Sadly the narrative of her fling with Simone helped write the script for the coverage of her relationship with Calzaghe, just as her four years with him is now influencing the allegations being made against her in relation to Cohen.
She’s found it a bruising experience for she is not as tough in real life as her glitzy showgirl image suggests.
She worries about the 10lbs added by television and admits she can’t bear to watch Strictly other than in brief clips on YouTube if she needs to review a routine.
‘Maybe I am a brand,’ she says, ‘but I don’t consider myself famous. I came to this country to dance, that’s all. I get on the bus and do my own laundry and shopping.
‘I don’t even have a cleaner, I do it myself the Russian way, down on my knees, scrubbing. When I’m not working I am so tired I am usually on my couch watching box sets. I don’t fuel gossip by going out to restaurants and clubs.’
Maybe not, but for as long as the Siberian Siren stars in Strictly it will billow around her as surely as dry ice rising from that iconic set.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-3103998/Strictly-s-Kristina-finger-pointed-woman.html#ixzz3bhpwU6QJ
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