Strictly Come Dancing’s Kristina Rihanoff and Ben Cohen split after their companies racked up debts of £1million.
Their love life is said to have suffered after their health company Soo Yoga Group ran up debts of £488,470. Cohen resigned from their firm last year and it is a year late with posting accounts. Another of their fitness firms - Yoga Wellbeing Limited - has debts of £63,000. The firm has failed to file accounts for three years and Cohen resigned in September 2022.
Cohen quit Soo Greens Limited three years ago and the business has racked up £54,000 debts. While fitness company Beyond Wellbeing was dissolved in 2022 with debts of £22,000.
Cohen also quit as a company director of struggling web firm Silicon Networks in 2020 - the company is in liquidation with debts of £275,000, including a £98,000 tax bill owed to HMRC. His anti-bullying charity the Ben Cohen Standup Foundation was dissolved last year.
Cohen met Rihanoff when they were partnered on the BBC’s Strictly Come Dancing in 2013. He proposed to her in the Maldives in October 2022. Russian professional dancer Rihanoff competed on celebrity dance show Strictly for eight series between 2008 and 2015.
The first reports of the split came earlier today and were described as the Strictly curse "in reverse".
A source told the Sun: "The past six months have been hell for them and it has torn the love they had apart. For the sake of their family, they have chosen to go forward as separate individuals.Those close to them who know them as a couple had hoped they would be able to work things out but for now it’s over and it looks like there’s no going back.”
Cohen and Kristina got engaged at the end of 2022 and spoke of their love in a glossy magazine shoot. The romantic proposal came during a holiday on the paradise island resort of Soneva Fushi. "I wanted us to go further forward together and taking a holiday in such a beautiful place felt like the perfect moment to do that," Ben told Hello magazine.
But cracks had started to show last year after Ben and Kristina first placed their £1.75 million home on the market amid money struggles, which Ben said in court in October had put pressure on their relationship.
In court 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 Rihanoff’s relationship, he said: "We’re still living together. We’re in it financially."
Kristina, who appeared under the name Kristina Pchenitchnykh, was hit with six points on her licence but faced a ban for totting up 12 penalty points after being caught behind the wheel of her Audi Q3 in Northampton on April 4. She sobbed throughout the hearing and had to leave the court room holding her hands over her mouth because she felt sick.
But just a month later the pair appeared to put on a united front when Kristina shared a photo on instagram with Ben's two eldest daughters from his marriage to Abby at a black tie event.
She hasn't shared a photo with Ben on instagram since last August when the couple posed with their daughter at a dance competition.
The Mirror has approached Kristina and Ben's representatives for comment on their finances and the split.
