Strictly Come Dancing star Amy Dowden has said cancer has changed her forever, and added: “I know my own self-worth now.” The professional dancer revealed she had been diagnosed with breast cancer in May 2023, after finding a lump the day before her honeymoon, and missed out on having a celebrity partner in that year’s series of Strictly. After a mastectomy and chemotherapy, the 34-year-old announced in February that she has “no evidence of disease” following tests, and she is due to return to the BBC dance competition for its 20th anniversary series.
Amy Dowden for Prima magazine (Prima/PA) “I can’t change what’s happened, I can only move on. I have the rest of my life ahead of me and I can’t give it any more time than it has already taken.” Dowden is to release a memoir called Dancing In The Rain and has also been the subject of an hour-long BBC documentary, Strictly Amy: Cancer And Me, which follows her diagnosis and road to recovery.
Speaking about her writing process for the book, she said: “Some memories were particularly painful. “The moment when I was in hospital, so poorly with sepsis – it always upsets me when I go back to that. “I was so lucky that I pulled through.
My chemotherapy journey was still very raw, so that was tough, and I wasn’t the energetic Amy I once was, so there were times when writing the book where I’d be like, ‘OK, that’s enough for today.’” She added: “Cancer has changed me forever. I’ll never take an.