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. After a mastectomy and chemotherapy, the 34-year-old announced in February 2024 that she had “no evidence of disease” following tests, and returned to competing in the BBC dance competition in September of that year, before withdrawing early due to an injury.
Before undergoing chemotherapy, Dowden learned she was going to be put into menopause and the dancer underwent an egg retrieval to give her and her husband the chance to try for a baby at some point in the future. The Welsh dancer discussed her plans to try for a family with her husband Ben Jones on the What If? podcast, with chat show host Lorraine Kelly and her daughter Rosie.
“I’m just saying yes to as many opportunities and living life to the full, spending time with loved ones as well,” she said. “And obviously, 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.
“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. At the moment… 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.’”
Amy Dowden returned to compete in Strictly Come Dancing in February 2024 alongside JLS star JB Gill. Dowden previously discussed her experience with fertility treatment in the hour-long BBC documentary, Strictly Amy: Cancer And Me.
The dancer will perform alongside her 2024 celebrity dance partner, JB Gill, during the Strictly live tour, beginning later this month. After she left the competition in November, Dowden said the injury that caused her to pull out of the competition had “nothing to do with any previous health scares”.
She was unable to perform with a celebrity dance partner in 2023, following her diagnosis, having found a lump in her breast the day before her honeymoon with her husband, professional dancer Jones.