Now Strictly’s man-eater bares teeth at a barrister
FORMER England rugby star Ben Cohen’ s estranged wife Abby is reportedly writing to the BBC to urge Strictly Come Dancing bosses to sack Kristina Rihanoff, who began courting the player after jiving with him on the show.
But ‘man-eater’ Kristina won’t go down without a fight. This weekend the 37year-old Russian dancer publicly accused one of Abby’s friends, the barrister Sara McCarthy, of leaking private information about her to the media.
‘You, Sara, and your firm will be reported for selling “friends” stories to the press,’ she claimed on a socialnetworking website. ‘Got everything on you in writing. Some family lawyer.’
A string of stories have appeared about Kristina since she was paired with Ben, 36, in 2013. He ended his 11-year marriage to Abby, 37, in September amid rumours that he was seeing the dancer. This made him the latest victim of the Strictly ‘curse’, which also claimed boxer Joe Calzaghe — who dated Kristina.
Last week the dancer attacked her critics on Twitter. After one individual told her to ‘stop sh**ging other people’s husbands’, Rihanoff responded: ‘How pathetic your life must be if you find time to tweet something like this. Poor you. Get a life? Or an education or both.’
Her responses came after Abby sent her an angry tweet, which included a poem urging her love rival not to hurt anyone in life. Mrs Cohen added: ‘There you go my lovely . . .’ A day earlier, Abby appeared to hit out at Ben, saying: ‘Some people come into our lives and leave footprints on our hearts, then they make us want to leave footprints on their face.’
Abby, who has seven-year- old twin daughters with teenage sweetheart Ben, is said to be filing for a ‘quickie’ divorce. Friends say Ben has recently admitted he is courting Kristina, but claimed that their romance began only recently.
Ms McCarthy deleted her Twitter account after Kristina’s allegation and could not be reached for comment.
However, a spokesman for Sara’s legal firm, No 5 Chambers, said it had not yet been instructed by Ben or Abby Cohen. ‘Any comment she’ll have made is in her capacity as a friend,’ he said.