Strictly star Amy Dowden lands second series of hit BBC show
STRICTLY Come Dancing pro Amy Dowden has landed a second series of her hit show Dare To Dance.
The Welsh star revealed she was back filming the BBC series on Instagram today.
Amy, 32, told fans: “Day 1 of series 2 filming Dare To Dance. Feeling lucky and so grateful!”
The star gives people who’d love to dance the chance to learn a spectacular routine to surprise friends and family in the heartwarming show.
Amy, who joined the Strictly family in 2017, runs a dance school with her husband Ben Jones called Art In Motion in West Midlands.
The participants in the show are trained at their school, which is where Amy learnt to love dance from the age of eight years old.
Amy previously said of the series: “It wasn’t about creating the most special, best dance routine or dance ever, it was about creating their moment to celebrate them and their lives. It wasn’t a competition, it was just something to celebrate them.”
She added: “It was a really emotional journey full of happiness, happy tears, excitement, pride.
“It was a real journey and it was so lovely to get to know them and their families and for them to have their moment.”
Amy and Ben became British National Latin Dance Champions in 2017.
They were the first all-British couple to win the title in 30 years.
Together they also became the British Dance Federation Champions, English Closed Champions and Welsh Closed and Open Champions.
Amy has been a British National Finalist four times, a World Championship semi-finalist and she remains one of the highest-ranking Ballroom and Latin American professional dancers in the UK.
Strictly star Amy, who suffers from Crohn’s disease, recently revealed she had received shocking comments from a fellow professional dancer who told her she had a ‘thick middle’ and a ‘fat bottom’.
Amy opened up on the horrific abuse in a chat with the BBC where she admitted that the body-shaming began in her early career when she was only 19 years old.
The dancer, who takes steroids to help manage the condition, said: “I can remember doing a dance competition when I was about 19 or 20, I’d been on a really high dose of steroids and it bloated me a lot – and my face changed, I called it the guinea pig face. My costume was really tight.
“It took me a lot to get on the dance floor. I remember walking onto the floor and this professional dancer shouted out “she’s got a fat bottom” and a “thick middle” – well, that’s the polite way of saying it. That comment has stayed with me for the rest of my life and when I go on steroids, it’s the first thing I hear.”
She continued: “She didn’t know what I’d been through and instead of dancing I just wanted to run off and cry.”
Amy has battled with the disease since childhood, when it first began affecting her at 11 years old.
The star also admitted that online trolls had been similarly cruel with one labelling her as ‘thunder thighs’.
In an attempt to bring awareness to body-shaming and to help put an end to it, the dancer has begun a podcast called Amy Dowden: Body Shaming and Me to share even more details on her personal journey.