Copyright dailyrecord
Stefan Dennis had already torn his calf muscle when he performed the Charleston on Strictly Come Dancing last weekend, managing to push through the pain with the help of painkillers. However, after being forced to withdraw from the BBC dance competition due to the injury, he spoke about his frustration at being unable to return home to see his wife, Gail, and their three children. At Tuesday's Pride of Britain Awards at London's Grosvenor House Hotel, the Neighbours star was among the large group of Strictly Come Dancing celebrities, professional dancers and judges to present teenager Zach Eagling with his award in recognition of his remarkable achievements. Speaking afterwards, Stefan - whose soap character Paul Robinson lost a leg in a cliff fall - admitted he felt "gutted" to leave the show due to injury. The exit came shortly after he and professional partner Dianne Buswell scored 26 points for their lively Charleston, their highest score of the series so far, leaving him feeling as though he was letting everyone down. On top of that, his wife of 25 years, Gail Easdale, has been left frustrated that he won't be able to return home until next month, as doctors have prohibited him from flying, the Mirror reports. "I can’t fly for another two weeks because of the risk of deep vein thrombosis which my wife is pretty upset about," he explained. "I just feel like I’ve let everyone down. They all say I haven’t, of course, and the pros know all about injuries, but it feels like a shame to go out in this way. It was all going so well. When you go out, you want it to be because the viewers have spoken, because it’s your time, not like this." The 66-year-old feels guilty for pulling out just after Chris Robshaw and his partner Nadiya Bychkova got voted out on Sunday's episode. Stefan even asked producers if Chris would return and take his place, he stated: "I said they should keep Chris in now that I’m going but they said they couldn’t do that - once you’ve gone, you’ve gone." He believes his unexpected exit will leave just three couples in the final, provided no one else suffers an injury along the way. "That’s what has happened before I believe." The Neighbours star, the oldest contestant in this year's competition who stays fit through extreme sports in his spare time, admitted he isn’t exactly sure when the muscle damage happened. “It happened at the end of last week, it was nothing specific, we’d been training as usual and it just started hurting. When I got it checked they said I’d ripped my calf muscle. I got through Saturday night’s show on a truck load of painkillers. They took the edge off a little bit - but not much! I’m still not sure how we got through that routine." One possible reason was that all eyes were on his "brilliant teacher" Dianne, who performed a cartwheel on the dance floor during the routine while being five months pregnant. Dianne, who has defended her choice to keep dancing while expecting her first child with long-term partner Joe Sugg, will now enjoy a well-deserved break as she enters the later stages of her pregnancy. “I thought I’d be able to carry on but they said absolutely not," Stefan sighed. "The muscle needs complete rest. So that’s me done unfortunately." He said the support and sympathy he’d received from the rest of this Strictly cast had been amazing. "Strictly is this huge machine. And we’ve all got so close, it doesn’t feel like a competition, we all just want each other to do well, every time." Stefan announced, on social media, earlier this week that he leaving the show. He wrote: "I was told that on Saturday I had torn my calf so significantly that I am now forced to withdraw from the show. I owe both the Strictly Family and Dianne a massive debt of gratitude for giving me the opportunity to fulfil my dream of being able to dance with my wife. (When my leg is better)." His departure comes after he missed week three of the competition due to an unrelated illness. "I had a little bit of a turn, a little bit of an episode with vertigo," he said at the time. "But it was all OK, I made myself right again with the help of some good people at the hospital." Stefan said that hearing Zach's inspirational story at the Pride of Britain Awards helped him cope with the disappointment of his early exit. "Hearing about Zach and his story helped to keep it all in perspective," he said. "What an amazing young man he is." Zach was born with a brain injury that left him with both cerebral palsy and epilepsy. During lockdown, at just eight years old, he walked laps of his garden to raise funds for the Epilepsy Society. However, after the charity celebrated his achievement online, trolls targeted him with flashing images in a deliberate attempt to trigger his seizures. Determined to stop this from happening to others, Zach, now 14, campaigned for online protection for people with epilepsy. Known as Zach’s Law, the legislation came into effect in September 2023, making it a criminal offence to troll someone with epilepsy to trigger seizures, carrying a maximum sentence of five years in prison.
