Strictly Come Dancing star Sarah Hadland admitted she almost pulled out of the tour because of her partner's injury.
The Miranda actress, 53, was paired with Vito Coppola during the 2025 series and they made it to the final, finishing behind Chris McCauslandwho won the show with Dianne Buswell.
She joined fellow finalists JB Gill and Tasha Ghouri, as well as Montell Douglas, Jamie Borthwick, Shayne Ward and Wynne Evans on the tour after the 20th series wrapped.
Sarah was delighted to be reuniting with Vito, 32, who she formed a close bond with during her time on the BBC competition.
However, Vito was forced to pull out of the tour after injuring his back. The Italian dancer announced the news with an emotional post about Sarah, featuring a compilation of videos taken from the beginning of the tour.
"This is the way I would like to remember this tour," he wrote, telling his followers that performing with Sarah was "super beautiful and memorable".
Sarah, who went on to dance with Nikita Kuzmin, admitted she came extremely close to quitting because she couldn't face performing without her partner.
Recalling the emotional moment she discovered Vito couldn't continue on the tour, Sarah said: "I don’t know who was more upset, me or him, we were both crying."
Sarah continued: "Because my trust definitely took a long time to build up and that was all Vito’s hard work, so yeah, I had a bit of a wobble and thought, 'I don’t think I can do this tour if it’s not with Vito'."
Sarah added to Metro: "But then I began a relationship with Nikita, he started coaching me and we made the routines are own, and very quickly you build that trust again.
"I think because of the groundwork Vito put in with me and the journey I’d had, I transferred that trust to Nikita, and I feel very, very lucky, I had a second go and had a second Strictly experience, so I feel very, very lucky to have had the experience I did."
When the Strictly live tour began in Birmingham last month, Sarah discussed how the dance competition had given her a newfound confidence after years of placing limitations on herself.
"Women come up to me every day and it makes me cry because there are two things they all say. They feel people have written them off but, worse, they've accepted it.
"It's one thing to have other people say, 'Are you really going to do that? Aren't you a bit old?' What's worse is you going, 'Yeah, I am'. It's like, no! Vito wouldn't accept that from me. It did cause friction at times because I'd be like, 'I can't do it', and I'd get annoyed when he'd tell me to try it anyway... and then I'd do it."
