Ex Strictly pro ‘gutted’ by backlash after slating Amy Dowden’s dancing

Former Strictly Come Dancing professional Brendan Cole is devastated that his scathing criticism of Amy Dowden has been ‘blown all out of proportion’. 

Amy has the unwanted honour of being booted out of Strictly in the first elimination of the series for two years in a row after she and her partner Chris Appleton got the chop earlier this month. 

In 2025, she was paired up with controversial The Apprentice star Thomas Skinner who was also given the boot in the first elimination that year. 

Brendan, who won the first ever Strictly with newsreader Natasha Kaplinsky on 2004, went on to say Amy ‘hasn’t been up to the challenge’ of training another celebrity, despite returning to the show in 2024 after beating breast cancer. 

He added to Sky Vegas: ‘I don’t think Amy’s been doing a very good job for the last few years, and she’s been out first for the last few years. One can do the maths on that.’

Weighing in on her exit, New Zealand star Brendan said: ‘To be a pro on Strictly is a big job, and one has to be up to the challenge. Amy has not been up to the challenge, in my opinion.’

Now Brendan’s pal and Legends of The Dance Floor co-star James Jordan, has weighed in on the drama.

‘It wasn’t what people think; he never meant it in that way, and he’s actually quite upset about the whole thing,’ James told Daily Mail. 

‘It’s all been taken out of proportion, and yeah, it’s a shame, because he was asked a question about them leaving and just said that he didn’t think the choreography was that good.

‘And then people were saying, “Oh, she’s a cancer survivor,” and it’s horrendous what she’s been through, and she does amazing things for Crohn’s and cancer and this and that.

‘But hang on a minute… He was just asked about her dancing. He wasn’t asked about any of that.

‘So this makes him look really, really bad when he didn’t mean it in the way that it’s now been all blown out of proportion, which is a shame, really.

‘I mean… what he should have done in hindsight, I suppose, was find Amy’s number and send her a message and go, “Please understand. It wasn’t coming from a bad place.”‘

James added: ‘But it has definitely been blown all out of proportion, and he’s a bit gutted about it, to be honest with you.’

The remarks sparked plenty of backlash on social media while Amy herself appeared to clap back to Brendan in a video on her Instagram, miming to Mariah’s Carey lyrics: ‘And I was like, why are you so obsessed with me?’ from the singer’s 2009 hit, Obsessed. 

In her caption, she added: ‘If you know, you know 😜🎀💖💃 #bekind #inaworldyoucanbeanythingbekind’.

Amy returned to Strictly Come Dancing in 2024 after being forced to take a step back from the show to undergo a mastectomy and chemotherapy for breast cancer.

She returned defiant with JLS singer JB Gill but had to drop out of the contest at Halloween when she collapsed backstage and had to be taken to hospital due to a foot injury.

After her journey was cut short for the third year in a row with Chris’ elimination, she told host Emma Willis: ‘Obviously, I’m heartbroken. This seems to be my luck the last few years, but do you know what? My heart is only breaking because I don’t get to dance with [Chris] on Monday.

‘But I get a friend for life, and that’s what’s gonna heal my broken heart.’

Strictly Come Dancing airs Saturdays and Sundays on BBC One and BBC iPlayer.

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