Strictly's Amy Dowden: Recovering From Cancer, Sepsis And A Double Mastectomy
On The Mend
High Performance
4.9 • 566 Ratings
🗓️ 2 March 2026
⏱️ 55 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This week’s guest is Amy Dowden, who shares her powerful journey through breast cancer, fertility struggles, and mental health challenges, a story of resilience that’s messy, ongoing, and real.
Amy talks about returning to Strictly Come Dancing just months after chemotherapy, only to realise she was burying her trauma. When health complications forced her off the show, she hit rock bottom, lower than during her cancer treatment, but this became the turning point for true healing.
She opens up about the hidden battles she faced: sepsis, fertility decisions just weeks after marriage, and the cruelty of online trolls. But through it all, Amy found unexpected perspective shifts, learning to live with Crohn’s disease without constant anxiety, and discovering that recovery isn’t solitary, it’s built on community and connection.
Amy chose to share her journey publicly, not as a perfect survivor, but as someone still figuring it out. This episode is about falling apart, hitting rock bottom, and slowly finding your way forward through small wins, honesty, and refusing to face it alone.
This episode covers the following themes: cancer, recovery, vulnerability, and strength.
Amy Dowden and Carlos Gu are heading on tour as part of 'Amy and Carlos Reborn' later this year. To purchase tickets, click here: https://www.amyandcarlostour.co.uk/
Get Amy's book: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Dancing-Rain-story-courage-resilience/dp/0349442045
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Want to know who's coming up next? |
| 0:01.6 | Hit follow wherever you get your podcast and you'll be the first to find out. |
| 0:06.0 | Today's guest is Amy Dowden. |
| 0:08.3 | I just felt this lump. |
| 0:10.0 | My husband and my parents were literally told that it was going to go one way or another in 16 hours. |
| 0:14.9 | Blood pressure, my heart rate was so low. |
| 0:17.1 | I was not responding to any treatment. |
| 0:19.5 | It was kind of like touching girl. |
| 0:21.2 | So where are you now in recovery? |
| 0:27.4 | Hi everybody, welcome back to On the Men. |
| 0:29.1 | This is the show where we look back at life's toughest moments to figure out how to move forward. |
| 0:33.7 | Amy, thank you so much for coming on. |
| 0:35.8 | I mean, everyone kind of knows you as, I mean, and I do, |
| 0:39.4 | it's this like the happiest, smiriest kind of like amazing dancer from Strickley. |
| 0:43.9 | But obviously this year has been beyond tough for you. |
| 0:48.3 | I mean, do you want to kind of take us back to what this year has been? |
| 0:51.1 | Yeah, so I've had my fair, a few tough moments growing up with my Crohn's disease, |
| 0:58.6 | but obviously recently my breast cancer diagnosis, which came as an absolute shock. |
| 1:05.2 | I never thought of 32 years old I would be diagnosed with the devastating blow of a cancer diagnosis, |
| 1:10.7 | but especially breast cancer. |
| 1:12.4 | Yeah. |
| 1:13.0 | And from that, I was literally told the news to watch your fertility plans. |
... |
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