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Strictly’s Amy Dowden reveals fertility journey after freezing her eggs prior to cancer treatment
The professional dancer underwent an egg retrieval procedure following her 2023 cancer diagnosis
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Your support makes all the difference.Strictly Come Dancing professional Amy Dowden has said she “would love a family” after she froze five of her embryos following her diagnosis with breast cancer in 2023.
The 34-year-old dancer was diagnosed with stage three breast cancer in May 2023 and underwent a mastectomy and chemotherapy, and announced in February 2024 that she had “no evidence of disease”. Dowden returned to the BBC dancing competition in September of that year, but was forced to withdraw early due to sustaining a stress fracture in her shin.
Before she underwent chemotherapy in 2023, Dowden learnt she was going to be put into menopause so she underwent an egg retrieval to give her and her husband, dancer Ben Jones, the chance to try for a baby in the future.
Speaking on the What If? podcast, with chat show host Lorraine Kelly and her daughter Rosie, Dowden said she and her husband were hoping to have the opportunity to try for a baby in the coming years.
“We would love a family, and we’ve got embryos, because, obviously, I’ve got a hormone-fed cancer, so I was put into menopause, which happened the day I started chemo,” she explained.
“So, in a couple of years, when they feel it’s safe, hopefully, we’ll have the opportunity. And if not, there’s still lots of other opportunities, which we have spoken about.”
“Hopefully in years to come we’ll be lucky enough to become parents too, but [we’re] taking every day as it comes.”
The dancer kept a positive outlook as she reflected on this time last year, when she would have still been receiving treatment and when her Strictly return was uncertain.
“This time last year, we were about to go through a rollercoaster. My mum said a couple of weeks ago, she came up to Blackpool to watch my students dance, and she said to me, ‘Last year, I said to you we were going to come and watch and to be honest with you, the fact you’re still here is everything.’”
The dancer, who first joined the cast of Strictly in 2017, was too ill to compete in last year’s series of the show. She returned to the 2024 show competing alongside JLS star JB Gill but was forced to leave early due to injury, with Gill continuing to the final with replacement pro dancer Lauren Oakley.
However, Gill and Dowden will dance together again during the Strictly live tour, which begins later this month.
When she left the competition in November, Dowden clarified that the injury that caused her to pull out of the competition had “nothing to do with any previous health scares”.
With additional reporting from agencies.
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