The latest star to be eliminated from Strictly Come Dancing has revealed an off-camera Amy Dowden moment that made her realise there are “more important things” than the BBC show.
Hockey player Sam Quek has been open about feeling “gutted” over her surprise exit from the series, which many viewers believe to be premature.
However, Quek has credited Dowden, 34, with putting the stress of the show into perspective for her and her fellow celebrity contestants with a “sobering” one-liner.
Professional dancer Dowden, who is “heartbroken” after being forced to pull out of the dancing competition for the rest of the year, underwent a mastectomy, chemotherapy and fertility treatment after being diagnosed with cancer in May 2023. In February 2024, she was told she had “no evidence of disease”
In a Facebook post shared online after the results show on Sunday (3 November), Quek said that the moment occurred last month, when Dowden and her celebrity partner, JLS singer JB Gill, unexpectedly found themselves in the dreaded dance off despite being one of the favourites to win the show.
“I want to share with you a little off camera moment that helped put everything into perspective for me, which happened a couple of weeks ago,” Quek wrote.
“When JB and Amy found themselves in the bottom two, the entire audience were in a state of shock. As the two of them took to the floor to do their dance off, they weren’t greeted with the usual warm applause and support from the crowd, such was the tension, surprise and awkwardness in the studio.
Quek revealed that Dowden “turned around to the audience and said, ‘Come on folks… it’s just a dance off… it’s not a year of chemotherapy!’
She called it “a sobering reminder that there are bigger and more important things going on around the world then Strictly Come Dancing… amongst the glitz, glamour, twirls and lifts you can sometimes forget that.”
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In response to Quek’s post, Dowden wrote: “Beautiful human and a beautiful dancer! Loved this partnership so much.”
Dowden was rushed to hospital as a “precaution” on 26 October after suffering a foot injury, and did not perform with Gill on the latest episode.
She has been replaced by Lauren Oakley and, after the pair received a near-perfect score, Dowden was left in tears of happiness.