Strictly Come Dancing star Giovanni Pernice threw his support behind his former dance partner Rose Ayling-Ellis when she shared a candid post about her deafness.
The EastEnders actress took to Instagram to share her headshot as she spoke about the BAFTA Breakthrough programme, which offers young creative mentoring and career development opportunities
She recently explained how her deafness was 'forgotten' about while acting in the long-running soap.
"Breaking through in the industry as an actor is really hard, but when you have a disability it’s even harder. I want to do more acting," she said.
“I’m really passionate about that, but opportunity doesn’t come to me very often.
"BAFTA Breakthrough is a programme for opportunity, so I’m hoping it will provide me with more."
Her former dancer partner Giovanni, with who she won Strictly in 2021, showed his support by liking the post.
Rose previously opened up about her deafness being 'forgotten' about on EastEnders when she was made a regular.
“That is brilliant for EastEnders to do that, because they gave me an opportunity to show that I’m capable of doing it," she explained to Metro.
“But it’s so fast [paced], there are so many writers and so many directors. I played a character, which is fantastic.
“I had a storyline, but sometimes my deafness got forgotten about a bit. And that is not EastEnders’ fault. It’s the system.”
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Rose became a fan-favourite during her appearance on Strictly. However, she revealed she didn't watch the show before going on it as it had poor subtitles.
She said she had felt "lonely" being one of few deaf actors and also "petrified" that criticising conditions could lead to her being replaced on jobs.
Rose expressed: "The first thing Strictly did was set up a meeting on Zoom to get to know me and they learned very quickly, as you likely have today, that I don’t have a filter.
“One of the first things they asked me was if I watch the show; I told them no, simply because I couldn’t – it was not accessible to me.
“The live subtitles were too slow, leaving me always a step behind and excluded from the jokes – even on iPlayer the subtitles had not been corrected."
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