Strictly Come Dancing professional dancer Vito Coppola has broken his silence after suffering an injury while dancing with celebrity partner Ellie Leach.
Vito and Ellie were performing on Saturday (October 21) when the Coronation Street actress caused the injuries. Despite being hurt by his partner, Coppola carried on with the performance and sought attention once cameras stopped rolling.
The pair had been dancing the passionate paso doble on the BBC show, which had been set to the dance-house track Insomnia by Faithless. After the performance, Ellie and Vito were given huge acclaim by the judges, as well as the viewing public.
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But despite their success, it came at a cost as Vito was seen grappling with a mouth injury after Ellie had smacked his tooth in an accidental moment of passion and excitement. Since then, Vito has come clean on the incident, adding that dancing with Leach has led to other afflictions.
(Image: BBC/Guy Levy)
On Strictly’s side show It Takes Two, host Janette Manrara asked the couple: “First of all, how’s your tooth?” Immediately, Coppola, 31, joked: “My tooth! Last week, I almost lost my toe, my big toe, she squeezed so hard it became double the size.
“The last small finger of the hand became the same size of the toe,” he continued. “Yesterday, I almost lost my ear because I fell.”
To add to the hilarity, host Janette gave Vito a glitzy, sparkly gum shield as a way to protect himself from his accident prone partner. The pair laughed as he donned the gum shield, taking the joke in their stride.
(Image: BBC)
Both Ellie and Vito then opened up on their massive success on last week’s show, where they received an impressive 37 points for their striking performance. Host Manrara pointed out that the last couple to score 37 points for a paso doble went on to win the competition in 2010.
But Italian hunk Vito tried to keep the pair grounded, despite their high score. He said: “This is a lot of pressure but maybe we take this as a sign of good luck. But we keep our feet on the ground.”
Corrie star Ellie agreed, admitting she was proud of herself without doing herself an injury. She joked: “I feel like I got into the groove of things, I got into the character and I just made my way down the stairs. I made it without falling!
(Image: BBC)
“We’re always laughing and having fun and the paso was completely different,” she continued. Ellie and Vito have had a tumultuous time on the scoreboard, as they had rocketed from the bottom of the leaderboard to the top in a matter of weeks.
Host Janette asked the pair how did it make the pair feel to see such quick progress being made, especially after having been towards the bottom of the scores. But Ellie was quick to interject, insisting: “We were the top of the second page! We’re always looking for a silver lining.”
Janette could be seen rolling her eyes after Leach corrected her, saying: “We are talking for dramatic purposes.” Both Ellie and Vito will take to the floor once again this week, as they dance to Murder on the Dancefloor by Sophie Ellis-Bextor.
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Source: Celebrities - dailystar.co.uk
