Amy Dowden’s return to dance after cancer and the Reborn tour
Amy Dowden remembers the moment she felt she had “lost everything” at the end of her cancer treatment, stripped of hair and strength after chemotherapy. That low point connects directly to why she says she “went back too soon” to Strictly, and to the quieter recovery that led her and Carlos Gu to the 2025 Reborn tour and a second preventative mastectomy in November 2025.
Amy Dowden’s decision to return to Strictly in 2024 and the cost
After a Stage 3 breast cancer diagnosis in May 2023 and a mastectomy, Amy Dowden faced further treatment in July 2023 that required chemotherapy. The aftermath included sepsis in August, a broken foot in November and a blood clot on her lung in December.
Terrified of losing her identity as a dancer, she returned to Strictly in 2024 because she “just couldn’t face watching another series on the sofa at home. ” Paired with JB Gill, Dowden danced and then collapsed backstage with a stress fracture in her shin in the sixth week and was replaced by Lauren Oakley.
Carlos Gu and the Reborn tour in 2025 that helped rebuild Amy Dowden
Dowden credits Carlos Gu with helping her find strength again for the pair’s ongoing live tour, Reborn, in 2025. Gu pushed her back into the training room and told her: “We’re not letting cancer take dancing from you. You’ve got through it. You’re going to get strong here again. ” Those were the steps that led to a return to the stage.
Gu’s support extended beyond training. He accompanied Dowden on ambulance rides and spoke with her late at night when she was in tears. The tour became, in Dowden’s words, “a celebration of both of our stories, ” marking how far each of them had come since joining Strictly.
JB Gill, Lauren Oakley and the interruptions that followed Dowden’s recovery
Dowden’s comeback on television was interrupted when she danced with JB Gill and suffered the stress fracture that ended that run. Lauren Oakley stepped in after that injury. Earlier, by March 2024, chemotherapy, a mastectomy and hormone therapy had produced a period when Dowden announced she had “no evidence of disease, ” yet later injuries forced further withdrawals.
Even as she worked to rebuild, Dowden continued routine medical appointments and moved to protect her future. In November 2025 she underwent a second mastectomy as a precautionary measure, a decision Carlos Gu supported while they were on tour in 2025.
Born in Caerphilly, Wales, Dowden traces her early love of dance to an eight-year-old holiday disco competition with her twin sister Rebecca. That childhood spark, and the determination she displayed after her diagnosis, are the throughline from that caravan holiday to the London stages and live tour stages she returned to after treatment.
Back at the moment she first described as feeling she had “lost everything, ” Amy Dowden now stands amid the Reborn tour and the aftermath of a second preventative mastectomy in November 2025. Her next confirmed milestone is the continuation of the Reborn tour in 2025, a forward image that brings her training room work and the support of Carlos Gu into the present as she rebuilds her career and health.
