Strictly Come Dancing professional dancer Amy Dowden has said tonight’s first live performance since her return to the series will be “beautiful for my family”. The 34-year-old told the PA news agency her celebrity partner, JLS singer JB Gill, had made the 20th anniversary series of the BBC dancing show the “perfect comeback” after overcoming breast cancer. She received her diagnosis in May 2023, when she found a lump the day before her honeymoon, and missed out on having a celebrity partner in that year’s series of Strictly.
Dowden announced in February that she would return to the show this year, after a mastectomy and chemotherapy left her with “no evidence of disease” following tests. Speaking of her return to training and performing live, she told PA: “I’m absolutely loving it, JB’s been the perfect comeback for me. “I’m just back in my happy place doing what I love most.
“I think it’s going to be just really lovely (today), because it’s going to be beautiful for my family, because they struggled just as much as I did having to watch me go through it. “Last year’s Strictly was a tough watch for them, because it was a reminder of exactly what we were going through. “It’s going to be one big celebration, this whole series for me.
” The Welsh dancer will perform the waltz to Leo Sayer’s When I Need You alongside celebrity partner Gill. Gill told PA he felt the pair’s chemistry was “very strong”. The 37-year-old said: “For m.