By Lisa Sewards
Last updated at 2:17 AM on 22nd April 2011
To dance the tango well,’ declares Vincent Simone with a flash of his dark eyes, ‘you need to have loved and suffered.’ His partner Flavia Cacace gives a sultry smile in agreement. ‘It’s all about passion, pain, jealousy — and betrayal,’ she adds.
And they should know. For the couple — who have wowed viewers with their sizzling-hot Argentine tango routines through five series of Strictly Come Dancing — have found their personal lives turned upside down by their tangled emotions.
They began on Strictly as a couple who had lived and danced together for 11 years, becoming world tango champions.
Passion: Flavia Cacace and Vincent Simone wowed viewers with their sizzling-hot Argentine tango routines through five series of Strictly Come Dancing
Then they broke up and Flavia fell in love with her celebrity partner in the 2007 series, former EastEnders actor Matt di Angelo.
The distraught Vincent — who calls himself the Italian Stallion — found someone else, and he and his new girlfriend Susan Duddy have a baby son. However, there was a bit of a blip when it was revealed that Vincent had been having an affair with fellow Strictly professional dancer Kristina Rihanoff.
Meanwhile, he and Flavia continued to dance together professionally.
Now Flavia and Matt are no longer an item, but she and actor Jimi Mistry — with whom she was paired in Strictly’s 2010 series — are romantically involved, in spite of her resolve not to fall in love with another partner on the show.
Earlier this month Flavia and Vincent began a UK tango tour together, which every night puts them in each other’s arms, entwines their legs and throws them into passionate on-stage kisses.
Their on-stage chemistry sizzles, and, as word spreads, some theatres are reporting that Midnight Tango — which matches them with ten of the world’s finest dancers — is their fastest selling show of 2011.
So how does it work between them? Is it possible to divorce yourself from the steamy clinches, ignore your passionate history and remain detached while performing the world’s sexiest dance?
Partners: Flavia gets close and personal with new beau Jimi Mistry after breaking up with old flame Matt di Angelo, right
Flavia, 32, says: ‘We love each other and care for each other more than anything, but we became more like brother and sister. We’d achieved all we’d set out to in competitive dancing, but there was something missing.
‘But I had tunnel vision. You would have had to hit me over the head with a hammer before I’d have seen anything was wrong with our relationship.’
Vincent, also 33, admits he had been jealous of who she might be partnered with when they signed up to Strictly in 2006. That first year, though, Flavia was paired with Jimmy Tarbuck, whom the Italian Stallion decided was no threat.
The following year, his great fear was the darkly brooding Welsh TV presenter Gethin Jones, so Vincent was relieved when she was paired with