Dancing with the Stars professional dancer Curtis Pritchard has opened up about the recent unprovoked attacked he suffered from along with his brother.
The brothers were in a nightclub in Chesire over St Stephen’s day when they were beaten up by a group of men.
Curtis suffered from an injury on his knee which resulted in surgery and has forced the 22-year-old to pull out of Dancing with the Stars series 3.
Curtis has said that he is lucky his brother AJ (a well-known pro-dancers on Strictly) was there at the time.
“I would have been in a lot of a worse way and AJ managed to get me out of the situation, and carry me off the floor and get me to safety.”
AJ added that he jumped to the rescue because Curtis was protecting him in the first place.
“It has made me very aware of putting myself in a scenario of larger crowds,” AJ admitted on This Morning.
“Obviously I’m doing the Strictly tour coming up and I will think twice …the really sad thing in this scenario was that we were just out to have a good time, and it came from nowhere.
“There was none of us in the first place causing a hassle or anything, we were not there for that scenario, that’s what is really sad for us.”
When asked by presented Eamonn Holmes if they fought back AJ said “absolutely not.”
Curtis added: “We weren’t there for trouble at all. We hadn’t seen each other for a long time. We wanted to spend Christmas together and have a good time.
“Once it happened the first thing that came to my mind was, ‘We’re in trouble. AJ is in trouble. We need to get out of this situation.’ We weren’t there to fight.”
RTE released a statement after the attack revealing that Curtis would not be in series 3 and a replacement would be announced soon.
“Dancing with the Stars pro-dancer Curtis Pritchard was involved in an incident on December 26th 2018.
“As a result of the injuries sustained, he will not have recovered in time for the launch of the new series, which will air January 6th 2019. Dancing with the Stars wish Curtis a speedy recovery.
“A replacement for Curtis on the show is currently being arranged by ShinAwiL and we look forward to welcoming Curtis back when he recovers,” it said.
Curtis was previously paired with Norah Casey and Thalia Heffernan.