Debbie McGee may be forced to pull out of ‘Strictly Come Dancing’ this weekend.
The 59-year-old television assistant – who was married to the late magician Paul Daniels – was over the moon when she found out she’d made it to week nine of the competition because it meant she’d get to perform at Blackpool Tower with her professional partner Giovanni Pernice, but her hopes of dazzling the panel have been shot down as she’s been battling with a bad back since her Salsa last weekend.
Debbie’s sister Donna told the Daily Mirror newspaper: "She’s twisted a muscle so she’s struggling. It’s a real shame. She has been suffering – she had a hot water bottle on her back all week. It’s really been playing up."
However, Giovanni is no doubt doing all he can to help Debbie recover and learn their routine without putting too much pressure on the muscles in her back.
The pair have hit the headlines week-in week-out because of their undeniable chemistry on screen but, although they’ve both played down romance rumours, she has admitted they share a "deep connection" that she can’t describe.
She said recently: "There is a magic that is happening. The other dancers take the mickey out of us.
"He really cares, he doesn’t just care about me, he cares about everybody. He makes everyone feel special and that’s what Paul [Daniels, her late husband] used to do, and that’s what I love about him. We’ve laughed about how similar we are. Why does it happen in life? I don’t know. We just have this incredible bond."
And, although she and Giovanni have a 32-year age gap between them, Debbie doesn’t think about being older than the Italian hunk because she and Paul had 20 years between them and he was one of the most "supple" people she had ever met.
She explained: "I don’t. I was married to a man 20 years older than me, who had more energy and was more supple that anybody I’d ever met. And my dad, Pat, who died three years ago, was still running faster than me at 84. He and my mum Babs, who is now 80, they weren’t people who let life pass them by. My mum still goes dancing every Saturday with my Uncle Toby. She loves to jive."
Debbie McGee to pull out of Strictly Come Dancing>
