https://proudstars.blogspot.com/2016/01/a-perfect-crescendo-for-reality-tvs_9.html
A perfect crescendo for reality TV's most toe-curling romance: Strictly's Siberian man-eater shamelessly announces on Big Brother that she's pregnant with married rugby hero Ben Cohen's baby
Kristina Rihanoff, the shameless star of Strictly Come Dancing
How best to announce the happy news of a pregnancy with your ‘boyfriend’ — given the awkward circumstances that you met him on a TV show, spent months denying the romance and, oh yes, he is still married to someone else?
By declaring the joyous event on air in the company of a ragbag collection of D-list show-offs and cast-offs whom you have known for precisely three days?
Kristina Rihanoff, the shameless star of Strictly Come Dancing, now seeking stardom of a lower variety by appearing in the current series of Celebrity Big Brother, has this week revealed she’s ‘almost three months’ pregnant by former rugby player Ben Cohen.
In what must surely be the ultimate car crash conclusion to a reality television romance, she tearfully revealed, in scenes shown last night, that she discovered over Christmas that she is pregnant by Cohen, her former dance partner on the BBC show.
The announcement took everyone by surprise, with a friend of the 38-year-old dancer saying that she had ‘told no one’ aside from Ben himself and her mother, Larisa. Certainly, it will have come as news to Ben’s wife, Abby, who is in the process of rebuilding her life with their twin daughters, Harriette and Isabelle, eight, following the unseemly public destruction of their 11-year-marriage.
And it seems Cohen himself may have been caught on the hop by the publicity, too. His Twitter feed was oddly silent on the matter yesterday — while Kristina’s friends gushed over her ‘exciting’ and ‘amazing’ news.
Why is he not rejoicing? Could it be that she didn’t warn him that she was going to announce their news on national television?
Her publicist would not respond to calls on the topic yesterday. But then, as we shall see, there are some doubts over the solidity of this romance, particularly given that Ben didn’t even come to wave off his pregnant girlfriend as she started her three-week reality TV foray.
All he did was post the distinctly ‘matey’ message on Twitter: ‘Wishing @KRihanoff the very best of luck in the @bbuk House. Gonna be tough.’
Back, though, to the big reveal.
Kristina, who has secured a £150,000 fee for the show, said: ‘There was something [that] happened in my life before I came into the house over Christmas . . . and obviously I thought it’s very private news, you know . . .
‘But because we are living as one family now and everybody is sort of supporting one another, it happened to be that I found that my boyfriend and I are going to have a little one.’
She added: ‘Thank you guys, I just didn’t know how to break it, what to say, when to say . . . it played on my mind, and I wanted everyone to hear.’
A spokesman for the star confirmed: ‘Kristina and Ben were surprised and delighted to find out that she was pregnant shortly before she entered the Big Brother house. Kristina is well and looking forward to being a mum.’
So what is going on in their relationship? Despite each of them publishing their autobiographies in the autumn, both have tried hard to say little about their romance, other than to insist that nothing happened between them before Cohen split from his wife.
Abby fumed in August last year: ‘He’s done the dirty on me. I want people to know. My husband, who I was with for 23 years, unconditionally loved and was completely loyal to in every respect, has left me for a f***ing Russian dancer.’
Friends of Rihanoff’s say they are concerned that she does all the running. They have noticed Cohen often does not come to public events with her, but she will make time to do anything with him and his children.
Kristina Rihanoff has revealed she’s ‘almost three months’ pregnant by former rugby player Ben Cohen
They were to have made their public debut as a couple at the fashion show of mutual friend Julien Macdonald last year, but instead Cohen travelled to Singapore to watch Formula 1 racing with a friend.
He made it back in time for her birthday dinner at the Mint Leaf Indian restaurant but looked shattered after his 16-hour flight, while Kristina chatted in Russian to her mother.
A friend said: ‘Last year she was doing 12-hour days with Strictly in London and then whizzing up to Northampton to help him sort out his house which was being sold. Now they spend a lot of time together at her flat, but he does not come out with her to all the events she goes to. She will explain that he is “working”.
‘She always says that his (anti-bullying) charity changes lives and how important he is because she is plainly crazy about him. But if he had been going into Celebrity Big Brother, you can bet she would have been there for him, with a brass marching band and a megaphone.’
It has been noticed that although she has been talking about wanting to marry Ben since the autumn, and has even spoken privately about planning their ‘really special day,’ no proposal has been forthcoming. Whether the latest development will speed those plans along, only time will tell.
A source close to the Cohen family said: ‘They are very happy about it, but obviously because of Ben’s divorce they have been trying to keep it very quiet.
‘As of Thursday afternoon, I don’t think Abby had been told. They were planning to tell her, but I think they wanted to try to get the divorce settled first. They weren’t trying for a baby, so it was a shock when they found out a couple of weeks ago. But they are very pleased and excited. When I’ve spoken to Ben about it, he’s said he is really looking forward to having another baby. He’s a brilliant dad.
‘Kristina is also really looking forward to it. I’m with them quite a lot and they get on perfectly, they are like a new couple. They haven’t been together all that long, but they are not getting any younger and they are both ready for kids.
‘I think Big Brother will have pushed Kristina into saying it to explain why she can’t take part in all of the tasks.’
