EXCLUSIVE! Kristina Rihanoff spills all on her time on Strictly Come Dancing and whether her daughter will be following in her dancing footsteps...
TENA has partnered with Kristina Rihanoff to create a pelvic floor strengthening dance, aimed at empowering women who have experienced bladder weakness. The former 'Strictly Come Dancing' pro spoke exclusively to BANG Showbiz's Jordan Beck about her campaign to encourage women who suffer from bladder weakness to speak out, her time on the BBC show and her Christmas plans with daughter Milena and husband Ben Cohen.
So this campaign with TENA is all about encouraging women who suffer from bladder weakness to speak out. Why do you think there has been such a stigma?
I don't know why because I think anything happening with our bodies should not be seen as taboo. It is seen as some kind of embarrassing thing to talk about, and I think it's really sad that women in general feel they can't really share things like that, and it's a little bit of an inappropriate subject, if you wish, in our society to talk about.
And I think being a woman is challenging. We sort of hide a lot of our feelings, how we perhaps deal with other issues surrounding, let's say, the birth of a baby. Sometimes, it's postnatal depression or premenopausal changes. We can slowly see now that the world is changing, and we're a little bit more vocal about it. But bladder weakness is something which a lot of women struggle with - especially after birth - but also when we start having changes in our bodies, like hormonal changes due to ageing, and sometimes it relates to other things, like even kidney infections.
How do you deal with something like this as a professional dancer?
It was a scary thought because you think, ‘Is that it now?’ I think, for me, because I'm a professional dancer, it is much scarier because this is something. My body is my tool. I know my body. I've been dancing since I was five. I know inside out, everything I need to do and can do with my body. And I was always quite good, I would say, looking after my body, diet-wise, and going to yoga to complement dancing so I can stretch aswell. I wasn't reckless because in a lot of sports, sportsmen and women are pushing to the limit because that's what sport requires. And that was the case with dancing, in the sense that you push your body to be as strong as it can be.
And being on ‘Strictly’, you do a lot of hours, and you do a lot of tricks and all these kinds of things, which is taking its toll on the body. But I, thankfully, always felt that I was okay, and I was in good shape. I think yoga was a big part of that because I did it for like 20 years throughout my competitive career and also on ‘Strictly’. It definitely helped my body recover the correct way, which is really helpful for overall wellbeing, mindfulness and so on. So the feeling that you cannot control your body, for someone like me, was extremely scary.
I shouldn't feel like that. I know my body. Yoga definitely helped, not just in the physical sense of that, but also mentally because with all the work we do during our classes, like breath work, mindfulness and meditation, it definitely helped me during that period just to calm myself down.
Are you watching ‘Strictly’ this year?
I haven't watched it that much. To be fair, I see glimpses and bits and pieces on Instagram and X because I follow the accounts.
And I love that because I don't have to sit for a couple of hours to watch the show. My household is a busy one, and work is very busy, and I'm in the middle of my yoga teacher training - I'm teaching other people to be yoga teachers.
So, I can't have two hours of my life on Saturday night dedicated to watching the program, but I definitely take a little bit in from the posts - and I see some incredible dancing. Chris [McCausland] and Dianne [Buswell] are really what the show is all about, and I think it would be incredible if they go all the way to the final.
It's really good to have that much diversity on the show. And Dianne, of course. I have the utmost respect for her. She's doing incredible work with Chris. It's challenging enough to teach an able-bodied person. Ballroom dancing, or any type of dancing is very challenging. But in Chris's case, it's incredible what the two are doing together. And, she's a very clever girl and a very good choreographer. She's doing the right things, and I'm very much rooting for them.
I think a lot of people will remember you for dancing with John Sergeant …
Yeah, you can say that is my claim to fame, definitely!
What do you remember of that time?
When people ask me, ‘Who’s your favourite partner on the show?’, I always say I have to go back to that very first series with John Sargent because out of all the celebrities in the eight years of being on the show, he was the only one who never showed any pressure.
That was my saving grace in the first year of the show because I came from a competitive world and went into this TV world. I didn't know anything about it besides you teach a celebrity and you dance with one. It was really nerve-wracking, that whole experience.
I was on my own. I came from the States to London. Then you’re in front of millions of people. So, I must say, I was really, really nervous.
And he was just the one. He's like, 'Oh, come on, let's go and do our little dance.' And it was just him having a bit of a joke. Everyone backstage absolutely loved him because he was just making it like, ‘Come on, guys. It is an entertainment show!’
He was very witty and very funny. We always had a really good giggle. And then, he decided to pull out of the show because we kept being voted in, and in, and in, and in. And here comes the quarter-final, and we're still there, and it's like, it isn't right, because good dancers are leaving now.
He said he doesn't want a joke to go too far, but who knows that? Maybe I would have won with him! Maybe, it would have been the one and only chance to win the show. But yeah, it's definitely been a hell of a journey, but I'm forever grateful because he was such a lovely man to work with. He was kind, he was cheerful. He made all those little stressful and difficult moments easier for me, making a little bit of a joke, and always bringing spirits up, and I'm forever grateful for that. Pretty much all the celebrities get so stressed, and they're so nervous being on that floor, and you can't help but get into that vibe, and you have to calm them down.
And you have to calm yourself down because you have to go out there and perform the best dance you can. This is our job as pros, but you get really nervous for them because you can see they're completely falling apart before going on that floor. So with John, it was a different kind of story. To be fair, I think there was not that much pressure.
Is your daughter Milena set to follow in your dancing footsteps?
When I opened my school five years ago, she was very little - three years old - and I had baby ballet classes, so she was going into those. And then, I started my first batch of kids classes at that time. Then, we went into lockdown, and she carried on online here and there. And then when we came back from the lockdown, she went straight back into doing freestyle and acrobatics.
She's a very active kid - she cannot sit in one place. We did try to bring her into my mini ballroom a couple of times, and she's like, Oh, maybe I don't want to do the Cha, Cha, Cha, it's boring.
For Christmas, I got her little dancing shoes and a beautiful little red dress, and I taught her a basic Cha, Cha, Cha step right here in the house, which I've put on X and other channels. The clip got about 100,000 views. It started by doing a little bit of a Cha Cha Cha in the kitchen.
And then January came and, she was like, Okay, I'm gonna dance. In 2022, she went to a couple of classes.
She was still five and then went to competitions and took a couple of trophies home. That's when the whole competitive side came out. She's like, that's it. Now, I want to win. I want to be the best. I want to do things.
She does put the time into it and works really hard. I've said previously that dancing is your real school of life because, in any sport, it's where you learn about yourself, about the way you act if you lose, if it's unfair, if you win, and also how to find that motivation post-winning and to keep going.
She's eight now and has done three years in ballroom dancing. She has done incredible stuff. She won a very prestigious award. She was the youngest girl to be nominated for industry awards, and she won Juvenile of the Year - the youngest girl to win that.
So, a future ‘Strictly’ star?
Maybe in 10 years - if it’s still going!
Would you ever go back yourself?
Nobody has asked! Our batch of pros were very different - and it doesn't mean better or worse. I think it was just it was different because when we were on the show, there were no props or any sort of production value, as it is now. Everything was based purely on the quality of your teaching and dancing, and how you're going to put all of that on a Saturday night.
The show has moved forward and changed dramatically from 2008 when I joined originally to now. The production value is very different. You can have any set you want. You can create magic with holograms and projections and take people from the sofas to a very different world.
Back then, there was none of that. It was just lights camera and action. That was it. It was a very different world, and we worked extremely hard to make that world exciting for people.
I think you have much more help nowadays to create something truly incredible, which is good because everything has to evolve and move forward. But I must say our pros had years and years of teaching experience because all of us were vetted. I had to ship a box of paperwork from the U.S. to the UK, with all my photographs of the trophies, certificates, letters from different dance organisations, my professional exams, all these things to prove I'm an exceptional talent. We're all top competitors in our field, whether it's amateur or professional. We all competed, and we all taught for years. We supported ourselves to be in the competitive dance world because whatever we would make money-wise, we would put back into buying costumes, travelling to the competitions, and paying for lessons with our coaches. So that's how we, in general, make a living and work. So, for us to teach anyone, really, any level, any ability, was not a big deal. We knew how to do it.
Before I got on ‘Strictly’, I had already 10 years of teaching under my belt, teaching adults, never mind kids, because I started teaching kids when I was 16. I joined ‘Strictly’ when I was 29. I think now they have very young pros there who perhaps didn't have that competitive background as all of us and don't simply because they're too young.
They wouldn't have that ability to teach for so long. It's not their fault because if you offered the contract on ‘Strictly Come Dancing’, obviously you're gonna say yes. So I think that's where maybe problems are coming now because it's just a highly competitive environment, and you have to have a skill as a teacher, not just as a dancer. And I think that's what our generational dancers all had, and we were also choreographing our own group numbers. And in group numbers, we had no production value, whereas now it's a whole different world. You have somebody who choreographs your group numbers. You don't have that pressure to put the dance together. So, it's a whole different world now. It's very different from when I was on there.
TENA has partnered with Kristina Rihanoff to create a pelvic floor strengthening dance, aimed at empowering women who have experienced bladder weakness.
