Dianne Buswell faced a tonne of criticism after she started performing on this year's Strictly Come Dancing due to being pregnant. However, the professional dancer responded to backlash by confirming that her doctors had given her the green light to continue dancing as long as she was careful; when she was forced to leave the competition due to her partner Stefan Dennis' injury, rumours spread it was related to Dianne.
She's since shared her frustration and reaffirmed that if it was Dianne who needed to leave, Stefan would have simply got a new professional partner, adding once more that she felt stronger dancing this year than she had done the year prior. But now after the pair have left the show, Dianne has admitted that she's expecting to struggle more now that she's not on the dancefloor. Speaking on her podcast Winning isn't Everything with Chris McCausland, she opened up on the exit.
She told Chris: "I didn’t feel any different in myself in terms of dancing, I wasn’t making it easier because I wanted that for myself. Every person you dance with has their own challenges.
"I’ve done this since I was four years old, in fact I think I’ll struggle more now being off, I genuinely think that, because that one week I had off was when I felt my worse, mentally and physically, I think it’ll be more of a struggle than when I was actually dancing."
Dianne explained that she'd been fighting criticism that the routines weren't challenging enough, which people had put down to her being pregnant; but she quickly batted away the claims and said it was due to needing to go at Stefan's pace, not her own.
When the news of his exit from the show was announced, Dianne shared a post from someone who said they had "seen it coming" due to Dianne's pregnancy.
Read more: Strictly's Dianne Buswell offers to join Tess and Claudia in emotional statement
Read more: Strictly's Dianne Buswell slams 'conspiracy' as Stefan makes sad admission
She fumed: "I sound like a broken record but I’m seeing a bit of this floating around again! I know people say ignore it but actually why should I?"
"I will speak up… I would love nothing more than to keep dancing this week next week the week after that so on and so forth. In fact I have more energy this year than I did this time last year."
She concluded with: "Please respect Stefan who is extremely gutted to not be able to dance and stop presuming this was a set up! Because believe me we would if we could!"
Dianne will still continue to dance with her fellow dancers in their group numbers, but she will no longer be competing in the show.