Vito Coppola found himself choking during his latest live performance in an unusual Strictly Come Dancing blunder. The Italian dancer is partnered with Fleur East in the dance contest and the pair were giving it their all in the semi-final on Sunday night.
Judge Anton Du Beke told Hits Radio hos Fleur, 35, that she had had "exactly the night you want to have before a final", as she impressed with her Charleston to Tu Vuo’ Fa L’Americano by Fiorello.
The singer, who trained for 47 hours this week, was praised by her partner Vito who said: "Fleur for me is one of the best person I have ever met in my life. She’s so humble. She doesn’t know but she saved me from my tough period that I had, so thank you. She is so brave but humble, she never says no…she’s so grateful. I am so proud of you."
The comments came after she opened the show with a paso doble to The Time Is Now by Moloko, scoring 35. However, their well-performing night didn't go entirely to plan in two senses as not only did they end up in the dreaded dance-off and had to fight for their place in the final, Vito also suffered a near-accident.
Vito and Fleur appeared on Strictly's spin-off show It Takes Two on Tuesday where the dancer opened up about the incident he suffered during their live routine. The opening of their performance saw Vito having to pretend to tuck into a meal.
He was only supposed to eat one strand of pasta but he couldn't resist more and took a mouthful of the carbs, which didn't appear to be to his standards as he said it was cold and undercooked. Host Rylan Clark asked: "Listen you’re an Italian, I’m sure you love a bit of spaghetti now and again. But whilst dancing?"
Vito replied: "At the beginning it was just to take one spaghetti and then to pull it out. But of course the temptation, so I did like two or three. Next, it was time to dance, so I just bit, I was chewing and for the whole dance, I was choking."
"It was just the three of us, me, Fleur and the spaghetti," he joked before Rylan said: "So you just couldn't breathe through the entire dance, but you didn't care." He also said he could feel the spaghetti in his throat while having to chat to Strictly co-host Claudia Winkleman.
But Fleur commended his commitment as she added: "He was committed, he was committed to the role." After surviving the dance-off, which saw Will Mellor the 11th celebrity to be sent home, Fleur will be competing for the Glitterball trophy on Saturday against Hamza Yassin, Helen Skelton and Molly Rainford.
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