Strictly Come Dancing favourite Amy Dowden has praised close friends Tom Fletcher from McFly and his wife Giovanna for their support following her cancer diagnosis.

The 33-year-old revealed when she told the couple about her devastating news, they embarked on an "eight-hour round trip" to visit her.

Amy was diagnosed with stage three breast cancer last May after finding a lump in her breast the day before her Maldives honeymoon with her husband Ben Jones.

The Welsh dancer underwent a mastectomy and has since received several rounds of chemotherapy, but recently announced her latest health check-up showed “no evidence of disease”.

Amy Dowden recalls emotional moment she told Tom and Giovanna Fletcher about cancer diangosis

Tom and Amy were paired together on Strictly in 2021 and became the eighth couple of the series to be eliminated, after a dance-off against CBBC’s Rhys Stephenson and Nancy Xu.

“I can remember ringing Tom and telling him, and Tom and G got straight in the car to do an eight-hour round trip to come and see me,” Amy told Kate Thornton on her White Wine Question Time podcast.

“Giovanna had finished a trek then did a three-hour drive home. They got in the car, they drove to Wales where my parents live.

“They spent a couple of hours with me and then they drove back, bless them. All because they wanted to be with me in person.”

Amy Dowden says her body has been through 'so much' as she hopes to return to dancing

Following her latest health check-up, Amy has now set her sights on returning to the dancefloor "later this year".

Appearing on BBC Breakfast last week (March 1), Amy said: “This is the longest I’ve never danced for since May so I need to get my body back into it.

“And obviously, my body’s been through so much with chemo so it’s building up gradually.

“But I have missed it so much. I used to go and support them and it was bittersweet.

“I was supporting my best friends but I didn’t want anything more than to be on that dancefloor. It was so cruel.

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“So that’s the aim, is that they’ll have me back to be back on that dancefloor with my best friends doing what I love most later this year.”

Last month the Caerphilly-born dancer said in a post on Instagram that she will not receive the “all clear” for five years due to her type of cancer, and that during that time she will continue to receive monthly injections and regular check-ups.

Kate Thornton’s White Wine Question Time is available to listen to on all podcast platforms.