Amanda Abbington reportedly “felt utterly helpless” in the aftermath of her split from Martin Freeman, enduring “a terrible time” as he moved on with a younger woman, according to an insider.
The 50-year-old actress first met the Love Actually star while filming the 2000 movie Men Only. The duo collaborated on numerous projects and built a life together in Hertfordshire, becoming parents to two children – son Joe, 18, and daughter Grace, 16.
However, their romance ended in 2016, with Martin finding new love with French actress Rachel Benaissa, who is 22 years his junior.
Post-split, Amanda experienced “some very dark periods when she had no control”, but things shifted during her recent dispute with ex-Strictly star Giovanni Pernice, which helped her regain “some degree of control”, the source said.
They told Mail Plus: “Amanda had a terrible time when she and Martin split. She felt utterly helpless. It cannot have been easy seeing him leave and then rebuild his life with a much younger woman. She must have had some very dark periods when she had no control.
“But then Amanda found some degree of control with her case against her Strictly dance partner. It was as if she felt she was able to seize the initiative and get what she wanted if she kept going and going. now she feels she has achieved just that.”
In a recent Newsnight interview, Amanda spoke about her distress as she struggled with Giovanni’s teaching methods. When probed by Victoria Derbyshire about the incidents, Amanda emotionally revealed: “Um, yeah. It was one of the allegations that was upheld. There were two allegations,” pausing to refer to her extensive report.
“There were two allegations of inappropriate conduct of a sexual nature. They were upheld and one of them was physical and one was verbal.”
Amanda continued, visibly upset, to claim that these were not isolated events but occurred over seven weeks. This follows the BBC‘s internal investigation which substantiated six out of her 17 complaints against the Italian professional dancer.
Victoria highlighted that Giovanni had denied Amanda’s allegations, noting he had informed Newsnight: “We are unable to comment any further and the BBC has asked both parties to respect confidentiality.”
The 50-year-old actress also disclosed that she has faced “hundreds” of threats in the past eight months.
Back in August, the Metropolitan Police launched an investigation following an incident where they were summoned to Finsbury Park’s Park Theatre due to a sinister death threat received by Abbington, at the time leading the cast 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 recounted.
“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.”
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