Amy Dowden has shared her heartbreak at having to watch Strictly Come Dancing from the sidelines amid her breast cancer battle.
The 33 year old was a professional dancer on the BBC series from 2017 to 2022, before she was diagnosed with grade three aggressive breast cancer, which she announced publicly in May 2023.
On Friday, 20 October, Amy appeared on ITV's Loose Women, where she chatted openly to panelists Nadia Sawalha, Denise Welch, Judi Love and Jane Moore.
Amy looked stunning during her latest TV appearance, in a pink dress with puffball sleeves, as she donned a gorgeous auburn wig.
The star was on the show to raise awareness for breast cancer awareness month, and whilst there, she admitted it was heartbreaking to watch Strictly from the sidelines after appearing on it for so many years.
She said she "would give anything to be there right now" with the cast and crew of the hit show, before saying she knows she needs to be patient but wishes she could get back on the dance floor.
Amy also said that being Strictly Come Dancing saved her life as she ended up going on a Coppafeel trip with Giovanna Fletcher last June, who is married to McFly's Tom Fletcher, Amy's Strictly partner in 2021, which led her to check her breasts.
Amy found a lump on her right breast the day before her honeymoon with husband Ben last year and went to her GP, before she found out the news that she was suffering from grade three breast cancer.
Speaking about the time before her final diagnosis of breast cancer, Amy told the Loose Women panel on Friday: “I knew. My mum had breast cancer but hers was picked up in a mammogram and she didn't feel it, it was picked up on her first mammogram.
“I didn't tell my husband Ben. I went on the honeymoon and every day you're putting sun tan lotion on and I could feel it. I just had this gut feeling.”
Explaining why she didn’t want to tell him initially, Amy said, “Well, he wouldn't have gone on the honeymoon! And I really wanted this honeymoon, for a break… What could we have done?”
Detailing what happened when they returned, Amy shared, “I had an ultrasound and I'd already Googled what it looks like and I could see, and I could just tell. All of a sudden there's a breast care nurse with me and I rang my sister and I was in floods of tears and she was saying ‘We don't know’ and I said, ‘Don't tell Ben, I don't want to panic Ben’.”
Amy then shared the moment that she received confirmation of her diagnosis, alongside her twin sister Becky and husband Ben, “The next appointment my twin sister and Ben came with me and I knew…”
“I could tell from the breast care nurses, who are just phenomenal. They are handpicked, they're amazing and then I could tell from the surgeon's face and then he said to me you've got breast cancer and then in the next sentence, ‘What's your plans for children?’, and for me that was just…"
Amy underwent a mastectomy in June and has been going through chemotherapy ever since.
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