Strictly Professional dancer Amy Dowden has had to pull out of the remainder of the dancing competition after suffering an injury.
Announcing the news, a Strictly Come Dancing spokesperson said: “Sadly, Amy Dowden MBE will not be partaking in the rest of the competition this year.
“Whilst Amy focuses on her recovery following a foot injury, fellow Professional Dancer, Lauren Oakley, will step in as JB’s dance partner.
“The health and wellbeing of everyone involved in Strictly are always the utmost priority. The whole Strictly family sends Amy love and well wishes.”
The Welsh dancer, 34, made a return to the celebrity contest this year after undergoing treatment for breast cancer and had been partnered with JLS star JB Gill.
JB Gill will now dance with new partner for remainder of Strictly
He will now be paired with professional Lauren Oakley, who had been without a celebrity this year and stepped in to replace Dowden on last weekend’s show.
The news was announced on Monday evening (November 4) during the show’s spin-off programme Strictly: It Takes Two.
On Saturday, Dowden watched in the studio as Gill and Oakley danced to a Bruno Mars medley and earned the joint-highest score of this year’s series.
Dowden had been taken ill during the live show the previous weekend and missed the Sunday results programme.
She was taken to Barnet Hospital from the BBC One show’s production centre, Elstree Studios, as a “precaution” after “feeling unwell”, a spokesman for Dowden said at the time.
Last year, Dowden found a lump in her breast while on her honeymoon in the Maldives with fellow professional dancer Ben Jones and was unable to compete on Strictly.
Recommended reading:
- Strictly fans say not giving Lauren Oakley a partner was the 'worst decision'
- 'Wonderful' star 'gutted' after being eliminated from Strictly Come Dancing
After treatment for stage three breast cancer, she announced in February that tests showed she had “no evidence of disease”.
The Caerphilly dancer has documented both her cancer journey and living with Crohn’s disease on a number of BBC shows.
She fronted the BBC programme Strictly Amy: Crohn’s And Me, which she said helped her “accept” her own condition for the “first time ever” after meeting other people with the bowel disease.
Dowden, who was admitted to hospital in Manchester following a Crohn’s flare-up during the 2022 Strictly live tour, said the BBC show encouraged her to front Strictly Amy: Cancer And Me in which she spoke about her fertility and health issues.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here