{"id":799745,"date":"2026-10-12T02:44:13","date_gmt":"2026-10-12T02:44:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/799745\/"},"modified":"2026-10-12T02:44:13","modified_gmt":"2026-10-12T02:44:13","slug":"strictly-come-dancings-amy-dowden-praised-for-perfect-response-to-brendan-coles-criticism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/799745\/","title":{"rendered":"Strictly Come Dancing\u2019s Amy Dowden praised for \u2018perfect\u2019 response to Brendan Cole\u2019s criticism"},"content":{"rendered":"

Strictly Come Dancing<\/a> star Amy Dowden <\/a>has been praised for her response to criticism from former pro Brendan Cole.<\/p>\n

Earlier this week, Cole, who appeared on the show from 2004 to 2017, claimed that Dowden has “not been up to the challenge” of appearing on Strictly <\/a>in recent years.<\/p>\n

“To be a pro on Strictly is a big job and one has to be up to the challenge,” he said. “Amy has not been up to the challenge, in my opinion.”<\/p>\n

“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,” he added. “One can do the maths on that.”<\/p>\n

His remarks came after Dowden, 36, became the first professional to be eliminated from the 2026 series<\/a> after she and dance partner Chris Appleton lost out in the dance off to Jaime Winstone and Carlos Gu.<\/p>\n

The popular pro took a hiatus from Strictly in 2023 while she underwent treatment for grade three breast cancer, then had to leave the competition early the following year after sustaining a foot injury.<\/p>\n

\"Dowden<\/p>\n

Dowden didn’t appear to be bothered by the criticism (PA Wire)<\/p>\n

Dowden, however, didn’t seem bothered by Cole’s comments as she shared a cheerful clapback on social media before the live show kicked off on Saturday evening (10 October).<\/p>\n

The dancer shared a video on Instagram in which she blew a kiss to the camera and lip synced to the opening lines of Mariah Carey’s 2009 track “Obsessed”, miming the words: “And I was like, why are you so obsessed with me?”<\/p>\n

“If you know, you know,” she wrote in the caption, before adding: “#bekind #inaworldyoucanbeanythingbekind”<\/p>\n

Her response earned praise from her Instagram followers, with current and former Strictly stars sharing their support.<\/p>\n

Strictly 2026 contestant and House of the Dragon star Bethany Antonia wrote: “You’re incredible. This is iconic and we all \u2764\ufe0f you.”<\/p>\n

“Beautiful inside and out,” added Sarah Hadland, who competed in the show in 2024.<\/p>\n

\"Dowden<\/p>\n

Dowden and Appleton were the first couple to leave the show last week (BBC)<\/p>\n

One fan hailed her “perfect response” and urged her to “keep shining”, while another said: “Sometimes people can be so bitter! You are a star shining brightly.”<\/p>\n

“The response from the public to the articles shows where their loyalties lie anyway,” a third suggested, encouraging Dowden to “keep being the lovely, talented human you’ve always been”.<\/p>\n

Negative words mean 1 of 3 things, jealousy, bitterness, or a lack of understanding,” another wrote. “All three say more about them than they ever will about you.”<\/p>\n

Earlier this week, Dowden admitted that she was feeling “gutted” after bowing out from the competition so early on.<\/p>\n

“From the first day to dancing on Saturday night, [Chris] grew and grew and grew [in confidence] and I’m just gutted that we didn’t get the chance to continue,” she told Strictly spin-off It Takes Two. “I honestly think there was so much more to come.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Strictly Come Dancing star Amy Dowden has been praised for her response to criticism from former pro Brendan…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":799746,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[96,391,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-799745","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-entertainment","tag-tv","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/799745","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=799745"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/799745\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/799746"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=799745"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=799745"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=799745"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}