Strictly Come Dancing finalist Karen Carney has opened up about begging BBC bosses to let her wear flats instead of heels but was told she’d be marked down
Karen Carney, who alongside her dance partner Carlos Gu is vying to claim the Glitterball trophy in the Strictly Come Dancing 2025 final, has revealed she previously faced a sharp rebuke from BBC bosses after attempting to dodge a crucial show requirement.
The former professional footballer opened up to Dame Jessica Ennis-Hill about her battles to adjust to the ballroom attire, with the high-heeled shoes proving particularly troublesome.
Karen, 38, stunned viewers with her remarkable week one display. Yet she disclosed to Jessica during a November chat on her Gold Minds podcast that the key to her triumph was actually stepping onto the dance floor wearing flats.
She explained to the retired Olympic champion: “I think the Jive, the first dance, even the shoes were like football boots. So it was really comfortable and I was really comfortable in them… like, the last three dances, I’ve been in heels.”
Jessica, 39, interrupted to question the Lioness about her true feelings regarding dancing in heels. She said: “I was going to say, like now, wearing heels and just going out for a night out, or just sitting having a meal, your feet absolutely kill.
“And I was watching you thinking, how do you dance in heels now, are your feet in pieces after?” The star candidly replied: “Oh yeah, honestly, that in itself is like… my heels for last week didn’t come until the day before, so I’d only had a bit of time with them, so I was like, ‘I hope they don’t come’!”
Karen then admitted that she’d “begged” Strictly bosses to let her skip wearing heels for one routine, but they cautioned the football star that her and Carlos’ scores from the judges would take a hit if she “wore her black shoes”, reports the Mirror. She went on: “I was, like, begging, I was like, ‘oh I hope they don’t come.’
“And they were like, ‘if you wear your black shoes, which would look horrendous, you will get marked down’, and I was thinking, ‘yeah, but if I felt more comfortable and I dance better, would the marking actually balance itself out?’ And they were like, ‘you cannot, it’s, like, the rules, you’ve got to wear them’.
“And I was like [sighs] and then [the shoes] came, and I was like, ugh!” Despite her struggles adapting to the footwear change, Karen has wowed the Strictly judges and audiences with her performances on the BBC programme.
Her self-assurance has also grown tremendously during the competition, with the star, who has endured vicious comments from online trolls as a football pundit, revealing: “For probably the last five or six years I’ve been open and honest about how I’ve been crushed quite a lot in terms of my confidence.”
She added: “Part of me was like, ‘if I could ever get the opportunity to throw myself into what I felt would be my heart, I knew that Strictly would be the thing that would fix me.”
Karen and Carlos are poised to face off against George Clarke and his partner Alexis Warr, plus Amber Davies and her dance partner Nikita Kuzmin as they battle to claim this year’s Strictly crown.
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