As one of Strictly Come Dancing ’s youngest-ever professionals, AJ Pritchard was known for his big smile and boundless energy.
But in 2021, months after his then-girlfriend Abbie Quinnen was injured in a TikTok stunt gone catastrophically wrong, AJ woke one morning in the grip of what he now knows was “the worst panic attack”.
“I couldn’t see, couldn’t talk, couldn’t breathe,” he recalls.
Not realising what was wrong, AJ, now 28, was taken to hospital.
“Even they thought I had some crazy disease, they were going to do a lumbar puncture. I was delirious. There was nothing coming out of me. I just sat rocking in the corner in the dark.”
In January 2021, AJ and Abbie had been attempting to recreate a ‘life hack’ tutorial, cutting a wine bottle in half using a burning rope. But the bottle exploded, engulfing Abbie in flames.
She was admitted to intensive care with second and third degree burns, losing part of her ear and undergoing several skin graft operations.
With lockdown restrictions in place, AJ became Abbie’s carer, cleaning her wounds every two hours and helping her moisturise the damaged skin.
“The accident happened at the worst time during Covid,” he remembers.
“Nobody was allowed to come to your house and I was suddenly a full-time carer.”
Abbie, 25, slowly began to improve, but months later AJ reached the pivotal moment he now describes as his lowest point.
“Once I’d calmed down, which took days, I realised I needed to talk to somebody. I needed to get this off my chest and try to deal with it.”
Asking for help sooner, AJ now realises, could have stopped him reaching crisis point – and he’s determined to encourage others to be more aware of their mental health.
“I kept insisting that I was fine but I obviously wasn’t,” he admits.
“It took me being taken to hospital and going through multiple panic attacks before I could admit I needed to talk to somebody.
“In reality, I should have opened up earlier – that’s the stubborn kind of person that I am. Now, I’m making sure that I can talk openly about it to help others, because there were so many signs before it got to that degree.”
The red flags had been there, says AJ, he just didn’t know how to recognise them. “For example, even when I was dancing for 10 or 12 hours a day I’d always made sure I sat down for half an hour, had lunch and a cup of tea.
“I’d stopped doing that – it sounds so silly but I have OCD and everything has to be in order. My routine allows me to get through the day, that’s the way my brain works. Changing small things like that really messed with my body.”
Other warning signs, he says, were the headaches. “They started to become more and more regular. And I started to sit down and be silent for like five, 10 minutes a day, and that got longer and longer.”
Now, he tries to listen to his body. “The body’s an amazing thing if we just listened to it, which half of us don’t.”
It’s been a full-on decade for AJ who, since first appearing on Britain’s Got Talent in 2013, has taken part in Strictly from 2016 to 2019, I’m A Celebrity and SAS Who Dares Wins.
Strictly, he says, was one of the most physically and mentally challenging shows, “dancing every single day through August to pretty much the end of December.
“Within any sport you need to rest and recover, but there’s no time to rest. That’s the hardest thing. I’d look at a photo of me from the start, all tanned with a six pack. Then by December I’d look so skinny and like sunlight has never touched my skin, like Edward from Twilight. Just physically drained. And then, like a crazy person, I’d go off, do pantomime, then the Strictly arena tour.”
But exercise, AJ says, has been pivotal in keeping him mentally healthy.
He and brother Curtis, 27, have been busy training for next Sunday’s London Landmarks Half Marathon.
“Running really helps me clear my brain. I’m really busy with work at the moment, I’ll do a full day at the computer and I just need to get out. Especially for me, being a dancer from a young age, training in the studio for five to 10 hours every single day. If I don’t use all that pent-up energy my body just kind of starts going, whoa, what’s wrong?”
This year, AJ and Curtis will be running in aid of the mental health charity Mind.
“It’s so good to see so many young people now openly talking about mental health,” he says.
“We can actually try and deal with issues before they become a problem.
“With Mind, one of their core values is making sure there’s always somebody to talk to, there’s a phone line to call for anybody who needs it.
“In these days where you sometimes feel like you can never get hold of a real person, having someone there 24/7 to help put us back on track is so important.
“For me, having that support and being able to talk to somebody was the biggest thing. At that point when it could have got even worse, it turned my life around.”
■The London Landmarks Half Marathon 2023 takes place on Sunday April 2. If you’d like to run in 2024 visit llhm.co.uk/pre-register-half. AJ is running to raise funds for Mind.
To donate, or get support with mental health issues, go to mind.org.uk
