Copyright manchestereveningnews
Strictly Come Dancing star Dani Dyer is making her return to BBC series after her 'devastating' injury last month. The former Love Island winner is one of three contestants to pull out of the annual dancing competition, with Neighbours legend Stefan Dennis becoming the latest earlier in the week after tearing his calf. Just days after the line-up for the 23rd series was announced, Game of Thrones actor Kristian Nairn withdrew due to struggling with ‘a high level of stress and a little bit of grief’ as Emmerdale actor Lewis Cope was called upon as a last-minute replacement. Dani was seen in the pre-recorded launch show in September, where it was revealed she’d be dancing with fan favourite pro Nikita Kuzmin . With just days to go until the show’s first live show of the year, it was confirmed that Dani had pulled out of the show after fracturing her ankle in training. Dani was quickly replaced by fellow Love Island winner Amber Davies , who has been one of the series’ highest scoring acts to date. As the race for the Glitterball Trophy heats up, the remaining 11 celebrities are taking part in icons week on Saturday night (October 25). Each of the stars will adopt the persona of a famous face, with Balvinder Sopal channelling her inner Beyonce, George Clarke becoming Harry Styles, and Lewis showing some love for Johnny Cash. With the stars desperate to not to be in the dance-off and avoid following in last week’s evictee Chris Robshaw in being sent home by the judges, Dani revealed that she will be in attendance for the live show. Taking to her Instagram story just hours before the show went live, Dani shared a selfie of her which read ‘ Strictly ready’, with two white love hearts. Wearing an off-the-shoulder black dress, Dani’s hair was done in lavish curls as she wore light pink lipstick to complete the look. Shortly after it was announced she was unable to take part on Strictly, Dani told her dad Danny Dyer on their podcast Live And Let Dyers that she thought she was ‘going to be fine’ after rolling her ankle. “I heard a noise and thought it was going to be fine. Obviously, I came home at the weekend and iced it. When they sent me for the MRI, it came back that there was a hairline fracture on my ankle and my ligaments. “They said ‘if you have a grade 1 sprain, we can work with a grade 1 sprain’. One of my ankles had a grade 2 sprain and the other had a grade 1. We went and got a second opinion and I was like ‘physically what can we do, there’s got to be something’... “The doctor said ‘if you continue dancing it’s not going to heal and get worse and we’re going to have to medically withdraw you. Those first two weeks you can’t wear any heels’. They’d have to change my dance completely,” she said. Saying she was ‘ready to go to training’, Dani was left gutted when she received a phone call from the show’s Welfare department to break the news. “Welfare rang me and said ‘Dani, I’m really sorry, you can’t compete, you have a fracture’... Nikita didn’t speak for two minutes, he was in complete shock. We were all devastated about it. It made it really hard for me because it was pure devastation. “I couldn’t leave the house because if someone went ‘are you okay Dani’ I would have cried,” she admitted.
