Strictly Come Dancing professional Amy Dowden won’t feature in the remainder of the dancing competition due to injury.
The 34-year-old dancer was rushed to hospital as a “precaution” on 26 October, but it was later revealed she had sustained a stress fracture in her shin, which requires several weeks of rest.
Her replacement is professional dancer Lauren Oakley, who has stepped in to dance with Dowden’s celebrity partner, the JLS singer JB Gill.
Oakley, who came eighth when partnered with Channel 4 News presenter Krishnan Guru-Murthy in the show’s previous season, did not have a partner this year. She joined the show in 2022.
“I’m absolutely gutted, I need to rest for a couple of weeks,” Dowden said on It Takes Two. “Hopefully I will be back dancing, hopefully in a group number by the end of the series. Fingers crossed.”
She and Gill had formed a strong friendship in their weeks working together, performing a number of routines including a Foxtrot to “Dancing In The Moonlight” and a Jive to Outkast’s “Hey Ya!”.
After getting through his first results show without Dowden on 3 November, Gill wrote on Instagram: “On behalf of both Amy Dowden and I, I just want to say a huge thank you to everyone for voting for us and wishing us well.
“We absolutely loved our performance on Saturday night and are so grateful to be through to another week on Strictly. Thank you, thank you, thank you for your support.”
Dowden had returned to the series this year after undergoing treatment for breast cancer in 2023, which meant she was too ill to compete in last year’s series.
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In May 2023, Dowden was diagnosed with an “aggressive” form of stage three breast cancer finding a lump in her breast the day before her Maldives honeymoon with fellow professional dancer Ben Jones.
She underwent a mastectomy, chemotherapy and fertility treatment in those nine months and experienced a series of major setbacks in that time, including doctors finding a blood clot in her lung, getting sepsis and undergoing fertility treatment.
On 9 November 2023, Dowden celebrated after she had completed all eight rounds of chemotherapy. She was told she had “no evidence of disease” in February 2024. At the time, she told fans she couldn’t wait to get back on the dancefloor.
Reflecting on missing out on the rest of the 2024 series, Dowden told Lorraine Kelly it would be “tough” to watch Gill perform without her.
Dowden said: “I am going to do my best not to cry,” as tears filled her eyes. “I am gutted it’s had to end this way,” she added. “I feel I have let JB down.”
Gill’s performance on Saturday, 9 November, will coincide with the one year anniversary of Dowden finishing chemotherapy treatment for breast cancer, which kept her from the Strictly stage for a year.
“Saturday is going to be tough because I really wanted to be dancing on that floor to show myself how far I’ve come in one year,” she said. The professional dancer explained she had wanted to dance the samba with her celebrity partner because she felt the “joyful carnival happy dance” was perfect to mark the occasion.