{"id":560864,"date":"2026-07-21T14:23:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-21T14:23:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/560864\/"},"modified":"2026-07-21T14:23:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-21T14:23:08","slug":"former-strictly-star-joanne-clifton-announces-pregnancy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/560864\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Strictly star Joanne Clifton announces pregnancy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Former Strictly Come Dancing professional dancer Joanne Clifton has announced she is pregnant with her partner AJ Jenks.<\/p>\n<p>The 42-year-old announced the pregnancy with a picture of a London Underground Baby On Board badge, usually worn to alert other passengers that the wearer needs a seat as they are pregnant.<\/p>\n<p>In a comment on the post her partner joked the baby would be called &#8220;ErlingbellinghamDebrunyeLennonMcCartneyTaylorHansonHelenMcroryClaudiaWinklemanAlanCarrBuddyHollyPollyShermanPrincessFiona Clifton-Jenks&#8221;, before adding &#8220;cya (see you) in September&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"tpe\" data-embed=\"instagram\" data-id=\"DbBqBS0oz38\">\n<p>A number of the stars of the BBC dancing show past and present posted messages of &#8220;congratulations&#8221; including dancers Amy Dowden, Carlos Gu, Dianne Buswell and Michelle Tsiakkas.<\/p>\n<p>Fellow former Strictly dancer Oti Mabuse posted: &#8220;Incredible news.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Strictly Come Dancing: It Takes Two presenter and former Strictly dancer Janette Manrara added: &#8220;Amazing news.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Fellow It Takes Two Fleur East posted: &#8220;Wooo, congratulations.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Her brother Kevin, who was also previously a Strictly professional dancer, posted three hearts to congratulate his sister and her partner.<\/p>\n<p>Clifton appeared on Strictly between 2014 to 2016, winning the show&#8217;s 14th series with celebrity contestant, TV and radio presenter Ore Oduba. She also appeared as an expert presenter on It Takes Two in 2015 and 2019.<\/p>\n<p>In the show\u2019s 12th series, she placed 11th with former Radio 2 Breakfast Show DJ Scott Mills, who was sacked by the BBC in March.<\/p>\n<p>Since leaving Strictly, she has appeared on a number of stage shows including the UK tours of Shrek the Musical and The Addams Family.<\/p>\n<p>Clifton has most recently been starring as Polly in the UK tour of Fawlty Towers: The Play.<\/p>\n<p>Source: Press Association<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former Strictly Come Dancing professional dancer Joanne Clifton has announced she is pregnant with her partner AJ Jenks.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":560865,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[93,61,60],"class_list":["post-560864","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/560864","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=560864"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/560864\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/560865"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=560864"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=560864"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=560864"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}