Strictly's Dianne Buswell faced hidden health battle hours before live show

Dianne Buswell was hit with an absolutely awful ilness on Strictly Come Dancing, but vowed to continue.

In his new book, Keep Laughing, Chris McCausland explained that the pair had dealt with a challenging concern during one of their biggest performances with their Couple's Choice routine to John Lennon's Instant Karma.

The performance had a blackout moment to transport the studio audience and BBC viewers into darkness as a nod to his experience living as a blind man. And while the performance showed on screen as the monumental moment they intended, it was almost very different.

Chris explained in his book that Dianne was incredibly ill and was unable to fully enjoy the performance as she was battling a stomach bug.

He said: "She had been unable to keep anything down and had spent a lot of that day in or near a toilet, so we were just grateful that it was only the pyrotechnics that went off, or that fast spin out of the darkness could have been a very different surprise!"

Despite Dianne's sickness, the performance earned them a score of 33/40 points from the judging panel of Craig Revel Horwood, Motsi Mabuse, Shirley Ballas and Anton Du Beke.

The moment still remained "absolutely spectacular" despite their fears that Dianne may vomit at any given moment.

But according to The Mirror, that wasn't the only challenge the pair faced during their time dancing together, he explained that he also faced a serious blow from Dianne after she kicked back too vigorously.

She had caught him so hard in the face that he "almost threw up and had to lie down for twenty minutes to recover".

He teased: "I took the entire impact of her flying foot right on one eyeball. It's honestly a good job they didn't work already or I would have been doing that dance half blind anyway and Strictly would have had an insurance payout like no other."

The pair went on to impress the judges each week after heading out onto the dancefloor despite any difficulties they'd faced in the lead-up to their performance.

Dianne admitted that she'd been told when she and Chris were first announced that she would be out quite quickly in the series, but they soon proved the public wrong.

They ended up taking home the Glitterball Trophy after flying through to the final, where Chris declared afterwards that the win was for Dianne "and for everyone out there who's got told they couldn't do something or thought they couldn't do it."

He added: "With opportunity, support and determination, anything can happen."