Ben Cohen showed ex Kristina Rihanoff what she’s missing as he stripped down in a very X-rated shoot amid ongoing money woes.
The ex-rugby player, 46, and the former Strictly star, 47, became the latest stars to be hit by the infamous ‘Strictly curse’ after their 12-year romance ended in heartbreak this month.
Ben dared to bare in the very revealing shoot, slipping into tiny white underwear and a grey T-shirt, drenched in sweat.
The erotic photoshoot, which he re-shared on social media on Monday from last year, comes after it was revealed Ben and Kristina and reportedly ‘facing a major dispute with creditors and the government’ over their crippling £1million debt.
Ben resorted to selling topless photos of himself last year in a bid to raise some much needed cash.
He created a calendar with 1,000 personally signed editions selling at £32.95 a time in the hope of raking in £33,000.
Ben Cohen, 46, showed ex Kristina Rihanoff, 47, what she’s missing as he stripped down in a very X-rated shoot amid ongoing money woes
The ex-rugby player and the former Strictly star, 47, and became the latest stars to be hit by the infamous ‘Strictly curse’ after their 12-year romance ended in heartbreak this month
MailOnline was told that the severe financial difficulties they had recently experienced are believed to have been behind their split.
According to The Sun, two of their companies, haven’t filed accounts in four years, with Companies House trying to force their closure.
The publication adds that creditors have now intervened and the striking off has been suspended.
Soo Yoga Group, which is owned by the couple, was £488,470 in the red in its last submitted set of accounts for the year ending on July 31, 2022.
It owes £450,000 to creditors and £190,000 to Kristina’s other firm, Bespoke Ballroom Ltd.
MailOnline has contacted Kristina and Ben’s representatives for comment.
A friend of the couple recently told MailOnline: ‘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.’
The erotic photoshoot comes after it was revealed Ben and Kristina and reportedly ‘facing a major dispute with creditors and the government’ over their crippling £1million debt
It’s not the first time Ben has resorted to selling topless photos of himself in a bid to raise some much needed cash as last year he created a calendar selling at £32.95 a time
The couple were left with crippling debts after they ploughed every penny they had into a yoga studio which plunged into crisis during the Covid pandemic.
The extent of their struggles were laid bare in unusual circumstances – during a court appearance last September when Kristina was caught driving without insurance.
Giving evidence during the case, England World Cup winning star Ben admitted he had bungled the handling of their car insurance policy and told how he was ‘fighting to save his relationship and home’.
In a tortuously frank admission he told the court: ‘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 Kristina’s relationship, he said: ‘We’re still living together. We’re in it financially.
‘We’re in business together so the problem is that we opened the business before Covid and we got the worst severities of it and in all honestly this is just another problem for me to deal with.
‘I’ve got credit cards that are overdrawn. I’m overdrawn in both accounts. We have got a business debt because of Covid. It’s just another problem.’
MailOnline was previously given an insight into their business struggles during an interview with the couple in May 2021.
Soo Yoga Group, which is owned by the couple, was £488,470 in the red in its last submitted set of accounts for the year ending on July 31, 2022
The couple ploughed every penny they had into a yoga studio which plunged into crisis during the Covid pandemic (pictured April)
They started Soo Yoga Group together in June 2017 – four years after falling for each other when they partnered on the 11th series of Strictly.
But Companies House records showed that company was £488,470 in the red in its last submitted set of accounts for the year ending on July 31, 2022.
The business was facing being struck off and Ben has since resigned as a director leaving Kristina as its sole director – while other companies linked to the couple were also in difficulties.
It was not long before the couple had put their £1.75million five-bedroom home in Sywell, Northamptonshire, where they had lived since 2016 on the market.
Speaking to MailOnline in 2021, the couple revealed the irony of how they set off full of hope on a project to improve health and wellbeing only to be plunged into a crisis which left them facing losing everything and damaging their mental health.
Russian-born Kristina – who left Strictly in 2015 before giving birth to their daughter Mila the following year – had worked hard to retrain as a yoga instructor.
The studio offered dance, meditation and pilates classes while Ben taught high intensity training.
But they were forced to close the seven-studio yoga centre when the pandemic struck just nine months after opening.
They started Soo Yoga Group together in June 2017 – four years after falling for each other when they partnered on the 11th series of Strictly (seen on Strictly in 2013)
Kristina told MailOnline: ‘The company is a new company we’d just set it up. We invested everything we’ve ever had.
‘It was awful. I put everything into it and you don’t even have a chance to develop the business.
‘We opened in August after the first lockdown and had a huge spike. It’s a family orientated centre. Then November lockdown, December it was awful because we didn’t know the end of it. It was forever and ever and ever. Fingers crossed we can go back to normality soon.’
She spoke of struggles with depression which has ‘skyrocketed through the lockdowns’ and admitted they struggled.
At that point they were able to temporarily run outdoor classes on tennis courts in Northampton but told of their plans to expand the business into a nationwide venture – hoping to emulate the success of David Lloyd’s sports club empire.
Ben said: ‘Yes it’s great being outside and doing stuff but it shouldn’t be at that point – we haven’t earned a penny.’
He told how it was ‘tough to run a business’ but said of his hopes: ‘Essentially we want to do what David Lloyd did. Everyone thought he was crazy. David has been helping us with this too. We want to grow this across the country.’
The couple appeared to be back on track after getting engaged on a sun-kissed beach in the Maldives in 2022 and told of their hopes of tying the knot in Tuscany or Oxfordshire.
Ben left his then-wife of 13 years, Abby, with whom he shares 15-year-old twins Harriette and Isabelle – for Kristina after meeting on Strictly (pictured with Abby in 2014)
Ben told Hello! Magazine in 2023: ‘Over the last nine years we’ve been through the wringer. To support each other through difficult times in business is the ultimate test in a relationship.
‘I’ve watched her flourish, from her becoming a mum to growing as a businesswoman, and it has strengthened our bond.’
But their ongoing struggles were revealed when Kristina, who worked on Strictly between 2008 and 2013, appeared at Northampton Crown Court to unsuccessfully appeal a sentence for driving without insurance.
Sobbing throughout the hearing, she told the court it would be financially devastating if she was disqualified.
She said she needed to drive to judge ballroom competitions across the country, which earn her around £2,000 a month, and to take Mila to school.
MailOnline later revealed the couple’s yoga company had plunged almost £500,000 in debt.
Ben left his then-wife of 13 years, Abby, with whom he shares 17-year-old twins Harriette and Isabelle – for Kristina after meeting on Strictly and falling victim to the show’s infamous curse.
He previously insisted nothing happened with Kristina during their partnership on the BBC dance competition, yet after their journey on the show came to an end he developed feelings so strong that he walked away from his marriage.
In light of his split from Kristina, Abby finally gave her say on their breakup – years after their bitter marriage breakdown
In light of his split from Kristina, Abby finally gave her say on their breakup – years after their bitter marriage breakdown.
‘I’m sick of being talked about every time Ben and Kristina are mentioned,’ she says. ‘Unfortunately, I’m always brought into their story because I was the victim, if you like, at the time. Their love story involves me because I was the third person.
‘But I just want it to go away. I want this to be closure on it.’
Does she have views on the split? Of course she does, but she admits she has to be careful about how she voices them, given that her priority has to be the protection of her daughters, ‘who are my life’.
They worship their father. ‘He is their hero,’ she says, in that way of the ex who can never publicly contradict that image. Though she does pity his current predicament, having lost everything.
‘I’m sad for Ben,’ she admits. ‘I do feel sorry for him. Our marriage broke down and it’s happening all over again to him, and he’s got another child.
‘He’s got to start again from nothing, in his late forties. He’s going from being so successful as a rugby player to [people] now reading of his business failures.’
She doesn’t want to rub salt in the wounds, she says: ‘I don’t want to make him look more stupid than he already does.’ And yet she asks the question so many are asking.
‘It’s come full circle now that they have split. It reminds me of all the hurt I went through. Was it really worth it? I don’t know.’
There is anger there, about the fact that her daughters are ‘having to go through it again, losing their home, and this time they have a sister too’.
They are ‘older and more resilient’ now, but ‘they’ve still got to go through more change, having already done it once’.
It’s striking that she does not join the rush to kick the man when he is down. She says that she believes in karma, though. ‘I have read people commenting on this, saying: ‘The wife will be happy about that, it’s karma.’ I think that what goes around, comes around, doesn’t it?’
Is she sad for Kristina too, who sobbed in court, clearly devastated at about how things have turned out? It’s another ‘no comment’ there.
And asked if she is surprised that the relationship is over, though, Abby shakes her head.
‘To be successful and have longevity, relationships have to be built on strong foundations. How they met is not, in my opinion, a solid enough foundation because it is all about lust. It’s a physical thing. I don’t know, but it doesn’t seem to me like an organic thing.’
