STRICTLY star Kristina Rihanoff has confessed she “pushed” her daughter, eight, to dance for 12 HOURS in one day for a competition.

The dancer, who quit the BBC show in 2015, shares her only child with her fiance Ben Cohen.

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Kristina and the former rugby ace met when they were partnered for the 11th series of Strictly Come Dancing in 2013, and fell in love.

They then welcomed their daughter Mila in 2016, before getting engaged in the Maldives in 2022.

Now it seems their daughter is following in mum’s footsteps and becoming a dancer.

However, Kristina has admitted that she “pushes” Mila to do her best.

In August, her only child won Juvenile Ballroom & Latin Soloist Of The Year at a prestigious ceremony.

She then revealed how, at another competition, Mila danced from 8am to 8am to 8pm almost non-stop.

Speaking to this week’s Close magazine, the former Strictly star said: “She was incredible and had around 140 dances.

“I did feel a bit of guilt as a dance mum, pushing her to dance for 12 hours, but she was fine.”

Kristina added: “Afterwards she was doing somersaults and headstands – I was exhausted just watching her!”

Meanwhile, yesterday it was revealed how Kristina and Ben had put their £1.75millon house up for sale after revealing they’re fighting to save their marriage.

They’ve been plagued with relationship and financial woes, which they laid bare in court.

Now, their family home in Sywell has been put up for sale, the MailOnline reports.

The couple bought their Northamptonshire home in 2016 and put it up for sale on September 19.

The sale of the house comes after their money troubles were brought to light, following the Covid pandemic in 2020.

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Rugby World Cup winner Ben also recently appeared alongside Kristina after she was caught driving her £30,000 Audi Q3 without insurance.

During a hearing at Northampton Crown Court Ben said he had ignored a text message from his insurance company.

He confirmed that he had been solely responsible for sourcing insurance for the couple’s cars.

The court was told that Mr Cohen had been searching for cheaper insurance online at the end of February after being quoted £7,500 by Aviva.

The court also heard they had set up several businesses, including a Yoga studio, which had suffered as a result of Covid.

Ben 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.”

When questioned about the strains on his and Kristina’s relationship, he said: “We’re still living together.”

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Nicholas Chavez, one of the stars of Ryan Murphy’s new true crime drama, Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story, has shared his sympathies with the series’ subjects.

The nine-part Netflix show centers on the gruesome 1989 murders of José and Kitty Menendez by their sons, Lyle and Erik, portrayed by Chavez and Cooper Koch, respectively.

Speaking to People at the New York premiere of Murphy’s other new series, Grotesquerie, Chavez said: “I really sympathize with the brothers, the fact that this was the most traumatic moment of their life, and then having that put on television for the world to see. I would imagine that would be incredibly heavy.”

Of the show’s varied reception, he added: “It’s sensitive subject matter and I imagine that everyone is forming their own interpretations of what happened as we imagined and intended that they would.”

Chavez’s remarks come shortly after the real-life Erik Menendez, who is currently serving a life sentence at the RJ Donovan Correctional Facility in California alongside Lyle, accused Murphy of releasing “disheartening slander.”

“I believed we had moved beyond the lies and ruinous character portrayals of Lyle, creating a caricature of Lyle rooted in horrible and blatant lies rampant in the show. I can only believe they were done so on purpose,” Erik, 53, said in a statement shared to X via his wife Tammi.

The series includes the harrowing sexual abuse that Lyle and Erik alleged to have been perpetrated by their father, José (Javier Bardem).

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However, Erik has hit out at Netflix over its “dishonest portrayal of the tragedies surrounding our crime.” He said the series has “taken the painful truths several steps backward – back through time to an era when the prosecution built a narrative on a belief system that males were not sexually abused, and that males experienced rape trauma differently than women.”

“Those awful lies have been disputed and exposed by countless brave victims over the last two decades who have broken through their personal shame and bravely spoken out. So now Murphy shapes his horrible narrative through vile and appalling character portrayals of Lyle and of me and disheartening slander,” he said.

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Murphy has since responded to Erik’s claims, telling Entertainment Tonight: “Listen, I think it’s really, really hard if it’s your life to see your life up on screen. I think it’s been 30 years since that case – that’s hard.”

He added that “if you watch the show, I would say 60 to 65 percent” of the scripted narrative centers “around the abuse and what they claim happened to them. And we do it very carefully and we give them their day in court and they talk openly about it.”

“We present the facts from their point of view,” Murphy said. “We spent three years researching it – all of that is true.”

Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story is out now on Netflix.

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Ryan Murphy has responded to Erik Menendez’s accusation that his Netflix series Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story is “dishonest”.

The Menendez brothers were convicted of the 1989 murders of their parents, José and Kitty. They were arrested for first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder outside their home in March 1990 and sentenced to life in prison in 1996. In 2024, new evidence emerged that has the potential to set them free.

Erik Menendez, who is serving a life sentence at the RJ Donovan Correctional Facility in California alongside Lyle, has claimed Murphy’s series, starring Nicholas Alexander Chavez and Cooper Koch, does not accurately portray their crime, and accused the creator of releasing “disheartening slander”.

Speaking to Entertainment Tonight, Murphy defended the Netflix series, saying: “I think it’s interesting that he’s issued a statement without having seen the show. I know he hasn’t seen the show in prison. I hope he does see the show.”

Monsters includes the harrowing sexual abuse that Lyle and Erik alleged to have been perpetrated by their father José (Javier Bardem) but Erik Menendez has accused Murphy of distorting the truth.

Murphy responded: “Listen, I think it’s really, really hard if it’s your life to see your life up on screen. I think it’s been 30 years since that case – that’s hard.”

He added that “if you watch the show, I would say 60 to 65 per cent” of the scripted narrative centres “around the abuse and what they claim happened to them. And we do it very carefully and we give them their day in court and they talk openly about it.”

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“We present the facts from their point of view,” the Dahmer director said. “We spent three years researching it – all of that is true.”

In his statement, shared to X/Twitter, Menendez said: “I believed we had moved beyond the lies and ruinous character portrayals of Lyle, creating a caricature of Lyle rooted in horrible and blatant lies rampant in the show. I can only believe they were done so on purpose.

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“It is with a heavy heart that I say, I believe Ryan Murphy cannot be this naive and inaccurate about the facts of our lives so as to do this without bad intent.

“It is sad for me to know that Netflix’s dishonest portrayal of the tragedies surrounding our crime have taken the painful truths several steps backward – back through time to an era when the prosecution built a narrative on a belief system that males were not sexually abused, and that males experienced rape trauma differently than women.

open image in gallery

“Those awful lies have been disputed and exposed by countless brave victims over the last two decades who have broken through their personal shame and bravely spoken out. So now Murphy shapes his horrible narrative through vile and appalling character portrayals of Lyle and of me and disheartening slander.

He continued: “Is the truth not enough? Let the truth stand as the truth. How demoralizing to know that one man with power can undermine decades of progress in shedding light on childhood trauma. Violence is never an answer, never a solution, and is always tragic.

“As such, I hope it is never forgotten that violence against a child creates a hundred horrendous and silent crime scenes darkly shadowed behind glitter and glamour and rarely exposed until tragedy penetrates everyone involved. To all those who have reached out and supported me, thank you from the bottom of my heart.”