Max Evans thinks his ‘Dancing on Ice’ partner must be "mad" to trust him.
The 34-year-old professional rugby player was left devastated last week when he accidentally dropped Ale Izquierdo on her head during rehearsals a day before the live show, but that hasn’t stopped the skater from experimenting with new lifts.
Speaking to BUILD Live, Max said: "She’s kind of bordering on mad when it comes to having the trust in me with some of the lifts that she wants to do.
"And almost it’s me that has to be like ‘Ale – I’m still a beginner skater, I won’t be able to do this come Sunday.’ – We learnt that almost the hard way in our ‘Re-light My Fire’ routine when I almost messed up one of the lifts live on the Sunday night."
And, although he’s one of the front runners in the competition, Max doesn’t think he’ll win and is convinced Coronation Street’s Brooke Vincent – who has found herself at the bottom end of the leaderboard every week thus far – will lift the trophy at the end.
He explained: "I’d say one of the dark horses to keep your eye on in Brooke. I’ve noticed she’s got some skating ability. She potentially has the ability to go quite far.
"I’m not allowed to bet, but at one point I saw she was 10-1 and I thought that’s a pretty good bet having the inside track! But you didn’t hear it from me!"
Meanwhile, Max has found himself the hot topic of conversation recently as his passionate routines have sparked rumours he has something going on with Ale.
The hunk – who is dating Lauren Jamieson – said recently: "Lauren is a dancer so she understands the need for chemistry to bring more to the performance. Our performance was full of romance and love.
"It was a compliment that the judges said we had such great chemistry. Lauren was buzzing that we smashed it. She was so happy and so supportive."