Although her time on this year’s Strictly Come Dancing was cut short, Amy Dowden is making up for it with the upcoming New Year tour.
The much-loved star had to quit the 2024 series – which saw Chris McCausland and Dianne Buswell claim the Glitterball trophy – due to injury. The Welsh dancer, 34, revealed her heartbreak at bowing out early over breaking a bone in her foot.
Her celebrity partner, JB Gill, continued to take to the dancefloor with Lauren Oakley, and the couple made it to the final. When asked today by BBC Breakfast host Sally Nugent how she is doing now, Amy said: “I’m doing really well, thank you, yeah, really good. To dance in the final was just lush. Especially considering the two years that I’ve had, absolutely!”
Shortly before her exit from the most recent series, where TV chiefs had to make an urgent 999 call after she fell ill backstage, she had told the Mirror she had “finally felt like me again”. Her turbulent time on Strictly came following a devastating few years for her health following a breast cancer diagnosis in May of last year and her continued battle with Crohn’s.
In 2019, Amy revealed she was suffering from Crohn’s disease and went on to front the BBC programme Strictly Amy: Crohn’s And Me. In it, she opened up about her battle with the condition and met other people with Crohn’s to hear about their experiences. Crohn’s, according to the NHS, is a lifelong chronic condition in which parts of the digestive system become inflamed.
In January 2022, the professional was admitted to hospital in Manchester following a Crohn’s flare-up while on the Strictly live tour. Two years later, she was awarded an MBE for her services to Crohn’s disease “on behalf” of all those who live with it. Amy is also an advocate and ambassador for the charity Crohn’s & Colitis UK.
As well as Crohn’s, Amy has publicly shared her battle with breast cancer. In May last year, Amy revealed the shocking news on her Instagram. She wrote: “Hey all, I’ve got some news which isn’t easy to share. I’ve recently been diagnosed with breast cancer but I’m determined to get back on that dance floor before you know it.”
She later told HELLO! Magazine : “I was in the shower and I felt this hard lump in my right breast. I was in shock; I checked again.” After realising the lump had grown while on her honeymoon in the Maldives with her husband, co-star Benjamin Jones, Amy went to see her GP and was sent for an emergency referral.
It was then she was suddenly diagnosed with aggressive stage three breast cancer. “You just don’t ever think it’s going to happen to you. I hadn’t thought it was possible to get breast cancer at my age,” she continued, explaining that her mum had breast cancer in her fifties.
That month, Amy underwent a mastectomy and surgeons removed three tumours and further cancer specks. She also had some lymph nodes removed from her right breast. Sadly, just days afterwards, doctors found a second type of breast cancer in the tissue they removed. They also discovered more tumours, including one close to her chest, and specks in her other breast.
It came as a huge shock to Amy and she was advised to undergo chemotherapy. However, her first reaction was to refuse it. “I thought that’s Strictly with a partner wiped out, that’s my hair gone, that’s my life gone. I was like, I don’t want to do that,” she told the Mirror.
While her surgeon kept telling her she could “dance forever and ever afterwards”, Amy was adamant she didn’t want to do it – until her former dance teacher stepped in. Amy was undergoing IVF to create and freeze embryos at the time, hoping she and Ben might still have children.
“She gave me tough love and said, ‘What’s the point of these embryos if you’re not going to have chemo? Because you won’t be around to have these babies anyway’,” Amy said. She finally decided chemo was right for her.
But sadly, her first and second cycles didn’t go to plan, resulting in emergency hospital stays and life-threatening complications. First came sepsis, then blood clots. “They said my blood pressure was that low my vital organs would have started failing,” Amy said of the first cycle. “We met the paramedics a week later and they said if I had gone to bed that night I might not have woken up the next morning.”
Assured by her oncologist that she had been unlucky, Amy pressed ahead with her second cycle of chemo, only to be faced again by terrifying circumstances. “I got blood clots, I ended up back in hospital,” she explained, adding that it was “frightening”.
Amy recovered and as chemo continued, her hair began falling out at home, which was a horrific experience for her. “I found losing my hair really traumatic and it didn’t matter how much I prepared for it I couldn’t even brush my own hair in the end I couldn’t even look in the mirror in the end because I was bald in top,” she said.
In September 2023, she made the decision to shave her head and filmed it to post on Instagram. “We all did it together, my friends and family got together, we tried to make it as fun as possible,” Amy explained. “They inspired me and I want to use my platform to give others the courage and strength they need.”
Then in November, Amy told fans she was ‘proud of herself’ as she shared a health update after ringing the chemotherapy bell, marking the end of her treatment. In a heartfelt post, she opened up about the milestone moment, alongside a video of her hugging multiple hospital staff before ringing the bell as she teared up.
She said: “I rang the bell and I’m so thankful I got to! My toughest journey yet! These past few months I look back and think how did my body get through this both physically and mentally. From the words I’m so sorry Amy, it’s cancer and what’s your fertility plans. To having a mastectomy, two weeks later hormone daily injections for egg retrieval, a little Crohns flare up and then on to chemo plus shutting down my ovaries on the same day which sadly lead to sepsis, blood clots, losing my hair, my eyebrows, lashes (I have a few hanging in there) and three toe nails.”
Amy continued: “But also it’s taken away my love of life these past few months and of course my DANCING! It’s been tough. But hopefully has now given me chance of more life which I’m eternally grateful for and I will never take for granted again. I’ll never be the same Amy again but, what I do know is I’m so much stronger than I ever knew and I have made the most amazing friends along the way.”
In February this year, the Strictly pro revealed her health check showed “no evidence of disease”, describing the news from doctors as “words I dreamed of” and her “biggest accomplishment yet”.
After quitting this year’s Strictly, Amy will now be getting ready to get back on tour with her BBC family. She is set to perform in January alongside her celebrity partner JB Gill, who will also dance with Lauren Oakley. The tour commences on January 17 at Birmingham’s Utilita Arena before moving to Sheffield, Newcastle, Glasgow, Liverpool, Leeds, Manchester, Nottingham and London, with the final show taking on February 9 at the O2.
