Strictly’s Rose Ayling-Ellis reveals moving silent dance moment with Giovanni Pernice ‘changed her life’

STRICTLY Come Dancing's Rose Ayling-Ellis has said the poignant silent moment in her couple's choice performance in week eight "changed her life".

The EastEnders star and her pro partner Giovanni Pernice left viewers in tears with an emotional contemporary routine featuring 10 seconds of silence in tribute to the deaf community.

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Speaking in a press conference ahead of this weekend's final, Giovanni discussed the impact of the performance and said, "it was such a big moment, it would be weird for us not to do it again".

He told It Takes Two presenter Rylan Clark: "Obviously the silent moment was so powerful, and because this got so much attention.

"Rose keeps saying the dance changed her life and lots of people’s lives, so it’s just fair to do it again and I think it’s the right thing to do."

To which the soap star added: "It changed my life, yeah".

Earlier today we revealed that Rose will play her ace card in tomorrow’s final by performing the silent dance for a second time.

The moving routine had viewers of the BBC1 dance contest in tears as it featured a lengthy section where she moved around the dancefloor without the sound of music.

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Deaf EastEnders actress Rose, 27, wanted to give onlookers a sense of what it was like to live in a world where you could hear nothing.

Speaking as she made last-minute preparations for this weekend, Rose said: “That dance changed my life. So I'm going to give it everything I’ve got.

“I want to enjoy it because it’s my last Saturday night ever - I just want to thank the public for keeping me in and believing in me.”

They performed their now-famous couple’s choice dance last month, to Clean Bandit's Symphony, and won wide praise with many heralding it as the TV moment of the year.

It will be one of three they perform tomorrow as they compete to take home the glitterball against John Whaite with Johannes Radebe, following the withdrawal of AJ Odudu and her partner Kai Widdrington.

Elsewhere, Strictly pro Giovanni revealed he would have been “jealous” if Rose was paired up with someone else.

Speaking ahead of their last hurrah, Giovanni gushed: "For me, the highlight has been spending every day in the studio with Rose because of the positivity and the happiness that I have had every single day for 14 weeks.

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"Its been joyful and it's the first time I've said I don't want this to finish. I always say I'm the one who is privileged to be able to do this journey with her.”

He added: “If she was doing it with someone else, I would be quite jealous."

Strictly Come Dancing airs on Saturday on BBC1 at 7pm.

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