Strictly Come Dancing professional Nikita Kuzmin has said he’s been frequently checking in on his former celebrity partner Dani Dyer after she was forced to withdraw from the show after suffering an injury.
The former Love Island winner quit the series on Tuesday (23 September) after fracturing her ankle in rehearsals. Kuzmin was subsequently re-partnered with another Love Island winner, Amber Davies.
Kuzmin, 27, revealed Dyer had told him to stop asking if she was okay and instead focus on his first performance with Davies, which they had under 48 hours to prepare before Saturday’s live show.
“Dani, honestly, she’s such a lovely lovely human,” Kuzmin gushed on It Takes Two on Monday night (29 September).
He continued: “She kept just telling me, ‘Don’t worry about me. I’m okay. Have this beautiful journey with Amber. You deserve it.”
When asked how he’d choreographed a new routine to perform with Davies with such short notice, Kusmi said he was “just happy” to still be able “to be part of the best show on telly” and would have “whipped out whatever” he needed to in order to still perform.
Davies and Kuzmin were awarded a score of 27 out of 40 for their first dance of the series; A Waltz to the Adele ballad “When We Were Young”. However, the pair admitted they’d had no time to master the classic toe and heel technique required for the style.
The former Love Island star said she was looking forward to going out on the dance floor next weekend after a full four days of rehearsals so she could feel more confident in her performance.
Kuzmin and Davies are currently rehearsing a samba, which the pro dancer dubbed the “hardest dance” on Strictly’s roster but added they planned to “shimmy” and “have fun” next weekend.
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Davies, who was born in Denbigh, North Wales, won Love Island alongside her then-partner Kem Cetinay in 2017. She went on to star in numerous West End shows, including 9 to 5 and Pretty Woman.
Of her previous dance experience, Davies said: “Ballroom and Latin are worlds apart from what I experienced on the West End show. It was a lot harder than I thought it was going to be.”
