Strictly star Kristina Rihanoff shares fears over 'never dancing again' after 'losing all feeling' in pelvic floor area

She’s been dancing since she was six years old – but after her daughter Milena was born, Russian professional ballroom dancer Kristina Rihanoff feared she’d never perform again. Like many mums, Kristina was left with bladder weakness, pelvic floor numbness and a devastating loss of core strength. It took her eight long months to recover and as her next dancing tour loomed, she feared letting everyone down.

“It was scary because you think, ‘Am I ever going to dance again?’” says the former Strictly Come Dancing star. “At the end of the day, it’s my work, and I love it.” Despite her famous fitness levels and lifelong love of yoga, Kristina couldn’t even hold a plank pose in the months after her much longed for daughter’s birth.

“I had no sensation of any kind in my pelvic floor area,” she confides. “I’m very body aware so I was like, ‘What is going on?’ I know my body inside out, I have always trained my body and competed at the professional level with very high endurance training so feeling like I couldn’t engage my core, and I couldn’t engage my pelvic floor, it really freaked me out. I was like, ‘What happened to my body? Where is all of that sensation?’”

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Feeling disconnected from her body also left Kristina struggling with her mental health. “Yes, 100% it affected my mental health,” says Kristina, 47. “Very thankfully, I didn’t have post-natal depression, which quite a few people in my circle did have, but I had worries about the work I love. I was like, ‘Well, if this is not gonna get better, then I’m probably not going to be able to dance.’ So that was all very scary. It’s a scary process of thoughts.”

Now Kristina is teaming up with TENA to create a pelvic floor strengthening dance to help women overcome bladder weakness and find the right products to help them until they are back to normal.

“Lots of women I know want to get back to activity after having a child, because you just want to feel kind of normal again. You want to go for that walk, that run, that yoga class… If you feel like you can’t control yourself so you shouldn’t go, that adds to depression, that adds to mental health issues, that adds to feeling inadequate and feeling bad about yourself.”

Since leaving Strictly at the end of 2015, Kristina has set up her own dance school and yoga business in Northampton with her partner Ben Cohen, 46, who she met on the show. It was a conscious decision to leave the world of TV behind, although she admits she missed the show at first.

“I really, really missed it the first couple of years,” admits Kristina. “You have a withdrawal. It was so vibrant and fun working together to make something really cool and amazing. Then you get busy with your life and now I have a dance school which has grown so much. I dance every day with the kids, and I have different ages and levels from ages four and five to adult couples. I take them to competitions constantly.”

One student who competes is her eight-year-old daughter Milena – who she and Ben call Mila for short. “I never thought she would take to ballroom dancing,” admits Kristina. “She didn’t want to do it at first. Then other kids were winning trophies and she was like, ‘I want a trophy too!’ I was like, ‘Well, you have to learn some dances.’ Then she got into it and loved it.”

However, teaching her own daughter can be difficult. Kristina says, “It’s a very funny dynamic when you teach your own kid, it’s not that easy at all. She’s like, ‘Oh Mummy you are so mean!’ I’m not mean! It’s challenging but it’s also wonderful as it’s something we have together as our little thing.”

Their “little thing” is thrusting Kristina back into the spotlight. Last month, Mila was cast by former Strictly contestant Sophie Ellis-Bextor in her upcoming music video alongside another pupil from Kristina’s dance school.

“Mila and Matei got cast for that, so we had to go to London and do a few days there with them for the filming,” says Kristina, who proudly posted a picture of herself reunited with Sophie on Instagram. Now, as Mila starts to make a name for herself in the ballroom world, producers and choreographers are already tipping her to become a Strictly professional dancer when she grows up.

“It was crazy, because we were in the same ballroom where I’ve done other dance events, and there were even the same producers and choreographers, and everyone was saying, ‘Oh, she’s gonna be on Strictly like you in a few years!’ I said, ‘We’ll see what happens.’ Same people, same place, but now it’s my daughter who is dancing! If Strictly exists in 10 years she might as well have a go!”

Mila has been competing since she was in the Under Six category, just like her mum, but Kristina thinks extra curricular activities build character and strength – something she’s had to draw on herself in both her professional and personal life.

She says, “Ballroom dancing or any after-school activities, this is your real school of life. That’s where you learn teamwork, that’s where you learn about yourself. You learn to lose, you learn to win.”

Undoubtedly, 2024 has been a tough year for Kristina. After she was convicted for driving without insurance, she appealed her conviction and Ben gave evidence to the court that he had been responsible for insuring the couple’s cars. He said, “I get up every day and I fight not to lose everything – to lose my cars and my house and my relationship. I’m so overdrawn.”

However, Kristina refuses to dwell on the past and is trying to put the episode behind her using the mental tools she learned in the ballroom.

“As dancers you always kind of strive not to look at the problems or issues,” says Kristina. “You look at moving forward and solutions. There are always ups and downs – more downs probably than ups. You just have to move forward and look at the future. You can’t just sit and dwell on issues. It’s about how you learn to move forward and see what’s in the future, and how to move towards something happier and better.”

Kristina is also contemplating a return to TV screens. However, she only wants to take part in a show that teaches her a new skill.

“I’m not up for silly shows,” says Kristina. “I would rather do something challenging like learning a new skill or doing something crazy, like I’m A Celebrity or Celebrity SAS: Who Dares Wins. Anything which will challenge me would be great – a personal challenge would be fun.”

TENA has partnered with Kristina Rihanoff to create a pelvic floor strengthening dance, aimed at empowering women who have experienced bladder weakness