To think that Sensory Trauma is behind the Strictly allegations against Giovanni?

It's an interesting idea - I know my voice sounds shrill to many, especially those who experience sensory overload - but I don't think sensory trauma is so common that all his partners, with the exception of Debbie, had it before training with him and experienced his coaching the same way.
Occam's razor = he's a shouty git especially when frustrated, who's also quite snarky. That doesn't mean I'm necessarily going to jump at a higher volume but I could well be traumatised after eight hours of it!

@KreedKafer , excellent points, thank you. 👍

No, I don't think for one moment that everyone who felt bullied by Giovanni is autistic or experiencing 'sensory trauma'. Not everything has to be medicalised, you know.

My guess is that the dancers train the celebrities in the same way they've been trained themselves to get to their standard, which is intense and gruelling (same with certain sports). I don't think it occurred to Giovanni (who left home as a child to train as a dancer and hasn't known anything else) that this isn't normal. And I think that's a massive culture shock to certain celebrities. Plus, shouting and temper outbursts and explosive rows are more normal in some cultures than others. My colleague is Italian and when we were both on the same training course at work, he mentioned that cultural differences like that can be a real issue in terms of how behaviours are perceived.

I think it's interesting that the celebs who have allegedly struggled with Giovanni are the ones who hadn't done this kind of thing before and perhaps hadn't experienced the brutal reality of dance training (whereas people like Debbie McGee, Faye Tozer etc definitely had. Also interesting that he dated Ashley Roberts, who he didn't partner with but did meet on the show, who is a trained dancer - presumably she had no issue with him. Georgia May Foote, who was one of his partners, also dated him.

Interestingly, Laura Whitmore, who has complained about him, was paired with him immediately after he split up with Georgia... who was Laura's best friend. Laura admitted shortly afterwards that she was pissed off with him and didn't like him because he'd dumped Georgia. So I take her issues with a pinch of salt.

I'm afraid my observations/experience of Amanda Abbington in general are that I would take literally anything she said with a pinch of salt. And that's all I'm saying about her.

Do I think it's OK to be abusive? No, absolutely not. But I also think that the issue is much more likely to be a mismatch between expectations of what's normal, and a degree of clashing personalities, rather than deliberate abuse. The producers should have considered that letting a professional dancer (who isn't actually a dance teacher) train a complete novice from scratch, without any discussion of methods and expectations with either the dancer or the celeb, might end up like this.

It’s supposed to be an entertainment programme - not training for the Olympics.

I don’t doubt that teaching an amateur can be frustrating but the teacher should be cooling off rather than losing their shit with someone who is learning. If they don’t have the patience then they shouldn’t be on the show.

I have a family member who has mild ASD, and apparently, his misreading of social situations because he is ND is the reason he sexually abused his daughter. 🙄 Neurodiversity doesn’t excuse abuse. Abuse is abuse. My family member sexually abused his daughter because he’s a creepy perv with no boundaries. He was perfectly able to read social cues well enough to work in a demanding City job for like 40 years. And to function well enough in all other areas of life. But I think being ND is an easy get out of jail free card for some nasty people and their apologists who don’t want to believe they could really do the bad things it looks like they did.

I went to a "dancing with the stars" weekend with the strictly dancers, but don't watch the show so had no idea who anyone was before I went and had no preconceptions at all about any of them.

Giovanni was vile. He was rude, snippy, and beyond arrogant. He was dancing with Lauren and we could see her getting slowly more and more irate and upset with him during our class. At first we thought it was just a character he was putting on but it became apparent that if that's the case, it was heavily grounded in reality.

He talked over her, continually pushed her face away with his hand ("helping" show correct form but it was genuinely quite jaw dropping how forcefully he was pushing her face while saying "her breath stinks so I don't want it in my face, like this") and when she was trying to help people, would interrupt with comments about how the group had no sense of rhythm and other uncalled for comments. She did really well to keep her composure. In contrast, the other dancers were all lovely, helpful, and seemed pleased to be there to meet people that cared about dancing, even if the class weren't as quick as they'd expected. For him, it was the Giovanni show and he was just glad that someone was wearing his perfume and carrying a bag with his name on it, but pissed off he had to teach a class that weren't picking it up as fast as he wanted them to.

If that's what he was like with a group of strangers paying a lot of money for a one off class with him, I don't doubt at all how he'd be with a non-dancer when there were stakes like winning the show and they're one on one. I can absolutely believe training with him could be very traumatic, ND or not.

If several women claim a man was an abusive bully who sexually intimidated them, I think its far more likely to turn out that that is exactly what he is, than to be found that all of the women have a condition that makes them overly sensitive to appropriate male behaviour. Dont you?

Rose could not hear any shouting, however, it would not make her immune to any unreasonable training methods or inappropriate behaviour. She is an intelligent and sensitive person, and very in tune with Gio throughout the training process.

I hope the BBC will be rigorous with their investigations. Graziano and Giovanni have gone. Let's see what happens next.

I think you're right. She did seem to laugh at some of his behaviour. They did have an amazing dance partnership, that's for sure.

It's generalising. The UK is "parochial" with news? My point is this - you can't claim that bullying is more rife in the UK than anywhere else. Of course it happens. More so than any other country? Just because this issue has made the news overseas does not, to me, constitute proof.

Rose has been noticeably quiet on this issue. I do remember her saying that he used to flare up and she used to call him a lizard (she did the BSL sign for lizard in the clauditorium after one of their dances to describe him). I think she just laughed at him and probably gave as good as she got. Not that that excuses his behaviour or is in any way a suggestion that everyone should just do that and it wouldn't be an issue.

This reads as utter bollocks.
There is a huge difference between being unable to tolerate noise etc due to autism and being verbally abused. Plus none of those who have spoken about abuse on Strictly have autism anyway.
What is your agenda here OP? I can’t decide if this is stupidity or a pathetic attempt at manipulation. Possibly from yet another defender of poor misunderstood aggressive men or a Giovani fan.

How on earth do you know if bullying is not substantiated elsewhere? Have you read press from a range of other countries? The UK is very parochial in what it reports so if you only read British news sources you won’t find out much about what happens in other countries.

It’s part of my job to monitor world news. I can tell you that bullying generally and bullying of TV contestants specifically is news in several other European countries at the moment as well as the US,Canada and India.

Right. Possibly training for the pros - just because you're a successful dancer, doesn't mean you're a great coach. Although, to be fair, Giovanni has been successful. I'd be interested to hear what Rose Ayling Ellis has to say.

I thought rehearsals were filmed, which is why Amanda is asking for hours of footage to be released?.

I think some were, not all. this is why they are putting in chaperones for all sessions in the new series.

The dancers start when they're very young and are used to discipline and pushing themselves. Combined with a desire to win, could push the boundaries. That's certainly been proven with Graziano, and the accusations against Giovanni. I saw the C4 interview with Amanda, and she was clearly upset, but didn't go into specifics.

I have 2 ND teen children. The sensory issues, sensory processing disorder, is really obvious in ND people. It's not fair to suggest that was the case IMO as SPD affects people every day, not just a one off. I think you're perhaps mixing that up with a snowflake - very different!
I heard that there was footage and Amanda has said this is out there it's just being withheld - I also heard a report of what happened is imminent too so hopefully this will get sorted out.
She may be a snowflake, but from the general gist of what's being said, I think some dancers perhaps are interested in the prize, and perhaps push their celebrities too hard
I think the ethos of the show perhaps is in question, is it the show pushing too hard for professionals to get the main prize ... or is it the dancers' well certain ones, being too hard just to 'win' no matter what

You misunderstood her post. She never said erupting with rage was an autistic thing. She said maybe people with autism and similar conditions might be more sensitive. Although you have over reacted to what she didn't say.

I have no idea about the programme or what happened so couldn't personally comment on it.

I thought rehearsals were filmed, which is why Amanda is asking for hours of footage to be released?.