Strictly's Lauren Oakley makes tear-jerking promise to Amy Dowden after sad show exit

Strictly Come Dancing pro has made a sweet promise to after she was forced to quit the show due to a foot injury.

The 33-year-old dancer has now been partnered up with until the end of the show as she replaced Amy, 34, permanently. The news was shared in a statement by Strictly and Amy later posted about her departure on her account earlier this week.

Now, during an appearance on It Takes Two, Lauren promised to "carry the torch forward" after Amy's exit as she said she wants "to do the partnership justice." The dancer told Janette Manrara: "Leading on from the groundwork Amy's put in, I just want to carry the torch forward as much as I can because she's done all the work.

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"I want to do the partnership justice and bring my flare to JB as well because he got the best of both worlds working with a couple of professionals." Amy also and stressed that her exit was "nothing to do with any."

Amy was previously diagnosed with cancer on May 2023, following her Crohn's disease diagnosis in 2019. However, she confirmed it was her painful foot injury that caused her to . Speaking to Janette on the Strictly spin-off show, she said: "I'm absolutely gutted, unfortunately I have an insufficiency stress fracture, if I've said that right, on my shin."

The dancer added: "This injury could have happened to anybody. I want to stress it’s nothing to do with any previous health scares." The devastating blow came after she had returned to competing in the show for its 20th anniversary series after missing out last year while undergoing cancer treatment.

Amy had previously been vocal about her battle with stage three breast cancer, receiving treatments ranging from mastectomy to chemotherapy. Earlier this year, she shared an uplifting update that her tests indicated "no evidence of disease". The inspirational Caerphilly dancer has been candid about her experiences, bringing her cancer fight and living with Crohn's disease into the spotlight through various BBC documentaries.

The 34-year-old added to Janette: "Hopefully I'll be back dancing in some capacity, maybe in a group number, by the end of the series." With JB Gill ready to continue in this week's show, he paid a gushing tribute to his former partner in a clip on the show in which he praised her "beautiful soul".

Hours earlier he had taken to to share further praise with his followers. "It was like we’d been friends forever and as a friend, it's been heartbreaking seeing the wonderful journey we'd begun come to a halt," he said "Your dedication to your art shines through in your passion for what you love. You would literally give anything to be on that ballroom floor dancing and I feel truly honoured to have shared it with you for 6 weeks."

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