Giovanni Pernice has accused Amanda Abbington of "spreading false and defamatory claims" in an explosive Newsnight interview about his alleged behaviour during Strictly Come Dancing rehearsals.
Following an investigation into the scandal, the BBC issued an apology to Abbington, upholding some of her complaints against Pernice.
The Sherlock actress withdrew from the BBC One show last year after five weeks, citing “personal reasons” and later describing a “toxic environment” with “inappropriate, mean, nasty bullying”, prompting the investigation.
Pernice, who is not part of this year’s Strictly professional line-up and has since joined an Italian dance show, has denied “any claim of threatening or abusive behaviour”.
The investigation reportedly found no evidence of physical aggression, but complaints of verbal bullying and harassment were upheld. Six out of 17 total complaints were said to have been supported.
On Wednesday’s Newsnight, Abbington detailed alleged abuse, claiming: “It was an ongoing litany of being verbally abused, sexual innuendo, sexual gestures.
“There was a 35-minute rant at me with him throwing his hands up in the air, calling me names and telling me all sorts of things that I was doing wrong and he couldn’t really cope with it anymore.
“This went on for seven hours a day for seven days a week,” she claimed.
“There were pockets of time when it was OK and we got on, which was wrong footing for me because when you’re in that room you never really knew where you were from one minute to the next.
“You felt very on the front foot all the time and not knowing what was going to happen next which can make you shut down. I shut down in that room. I was called mad and unstable.”
The actress claimed she’d “never experienced” anything like what happened in those rehearsal rooms during her career, mentioning incidents such as “eye rolling.”
She claimed: “When I got a dance step right he would outline his erection in his trousers and tell me that’s what my dance move had made happen, because I’d got it right.
“The other sexual allegation was verbal, and they weren’t isolated one-off incidents. They were over a period of seven weeks.
“It feels very distorted and you lose sense of reality,” she said, recalling how she felt at the time, and “in hindsight” she would have “walked out”.
On the back of Abbington’s latest claims, a spokesman for Pernice accused her of spreading “false and defamatory claims”.
He said: “It’s disappointing that Ms Abbington would knowingly mislead the outcome of the report in order to further damage Giovanni’s reputation.
“While Ms Abbington may not like the outcome of the six month investigation, she should not seek to spread false and defamatory claims.”
The 50-year-old said in the last eight months, the number of threats she has received had “gone into the hundreds”.
In August, the Metropolitan Police confirmed they were investigating after they were called to the Park Theatre in Finsbury Park to an alleged death threat sent to Abbington, who was starring in When It Happens To You.
“I had a credible death threat sent to my place of work, a theatre that I was working at, which was credible and the police had to be called,” Abbington said.
“I had a bomb threat sent to my place of work, threatening to blow the building up because I was pursuing this. I’ve had death threats sent to me, my family.
“I’ve had rape threats sent to my 15-year-old daughter, saying ‘I’m just laughing at the moment thinking about you having to watch your daughter get raped for what you’ve done to Giovanni Pernice’.
“They were every day I’d be getting those and I have screenshots that have been handed over to the Met Police.”
Abbington said the threats had “started up again” since the publication of the BBC review on Monday.
She said she has been receiving threats including “I hope you die of cancer” and “I knew you’d get proven wrong you lying c***”.
Despite the threats, Abbington said “I’ve got no regrets” about lodging complaints against Pernice.
She said she invited the former Strictly contestants to her home because “we wanted to make sure we weren’t on our own thinking this had just happened to us”.
Abbington said when they first met “we all burst into tears”.
She has not ruled out taking legal action against the BBC. Abbington said there had been "a lot of misinformation" following the publication of the BBC report, which appeared to diminish the seriousness of the case.
The BBC previously apologised to Abbington and thanked her for coming forward.
At the time, although the production team took steps to address the issues as they understood them, ultimately these were not enough. This is why the measures we have taken to further strengthen our existing protocols are so important," the BBC said.
A spokeswoman for Pernice previously welcomed the BBC review, saying they are "pleased that this six-month review has not found any evidence of threatening or abusive behaviour by Giovanni".
