From battling a secret health condition, self-harm, a sleeping pill addiction and football punditry abuse – Karen Carney OBE has faced it all.
Yet after a tricky few years, Karen looks set to get some of the glory she deserves as she’s tipped to win the 2025 Strictly Come Dancing Glitterball trophy.
The former Lioness will take to the dancefloor on Saturday night to battle it out for the crown alongside fellow finalists, George Stark and Amber Davies.
The Strictly star, 38, played as a winger and midfielder during her professional football career – during which she made 144 appearances for England.
However despite her success as a footballer, and later a pundit for the likes of TNT Sports and Sky Sports, Karen experienced some very low points.
Karen has been open about her personal woes during the live shows, opening up about her Scheuermann’s disease and dedicating a dance to her inspiring mother and football career.
Despite being a low contender at the start of the series, Karen has become the shock favourite to win in bookies’ odds.
Bookies have Karen placed at just 8/13 for this year’s Glitterball trophy, with long-time favourite George, now second in the betting at 6/4, according to Ladbrokes.
Karen’s Strictly stint has proved a success for her fanbase as she’s gained an incredible 71,000 Instagram followers since starring on the show.
From battling a secret health condition, self-harm, a sleeping pill addiction and football punditry abuse – Karen Carney, 38, OBE has faced it all
After a tricky few years, Karen may finally get all the glory she deserves as she’s tipped to win the 2025 Strictly Come Dancing Glitterball trophy
Secret health battle
During week eight of the competition, Karen touched on her spine condition, Scheuermann’s disease, and how it has affected her dancing.
Following an emotional American Smooth, Carlos Gu said: ‘She worked so hard this week.
‘I know the ballroom is not her strength, but she came into the training room and she said, “Carlos, I really want to try hard. I know my back has problems, but I really want to try and I really want to show that I’m improving just a little bit.”
Karen has lived with Scheuermann’s disease, which causes curvature at the top of the spine, since childhood.
‘I suffered with it the whole of my football career but I never made it a thing – particularly with the dancing – because I always knew I could get on the pitch,’ she recently explained to The Telegraph.
During week eight of the competition, Karen touched on her spine condition, Scheuermann’s disease, and how it has affected her dancing
The Strictly star played as a winger and midfielder during her professional football career – during which she made 144 appearances for England
‘I always knew I’d find a way. I just won’t be able to do certain things. Sometimes it was disheartening when I played and it did impact my career, but I just got on with it.
‘I just want to show that I might not be the perfect dancer, I will not have the perfect posture, but I’ll certainly give it my best.’
Karen spent hours throughout her career being treated for the disease. A women’s sport and health performance specialist, Eva Woods, kept her ticking along.
But that’s not the only battle Karen has had to face.
Sleeping pill addiction
After picking up a knee injury while playing for the Chicago Red Stars, towards the start of her career, Karen sank into depression and began self-harming before becoming addicted to sleeping pills
After picking up a knee injury while playing for the Chicago Red Stars, towards the start of her career, Karen sank into depression and began self-harming before becoming addicted to sleeping pills.
‘I was in a pretty bad way. I think that has been the hardest thing I’ve ever had to overcome,’ she told The Guardian.
Manager Emma Hayes, who she had also had at Arsenal, told her to return to England for her own good. Birmingham City came calling.
‘I came back purely to… save my life, pretty much,’ she added. ‘They were, like, we know you’re not in a good place, but we will do our best to take care of you.
‘My friends, people around me dragged me through and I owed it to them to try and fight, and it’s an amazing feeling when you can get through that. It’s hard to talk about it, and I couldn’t have done it without people [around me].’
Karen later told the BBC: ‘I’ve done some bad things to myself, that was probably the lowest point. But I’m here.
‘We just want to inspire people to get through dark places and come through it, because you can.’
Punditry abuse
Karen, who retired as a footballer in 2019 and became a pundit, received horrific abuse from online trolls – which later led her to having suicidal thoughts (pictured with Laura Woods)
Karen, who retired as a footballer in 2019 and became a pundit, received horrific abuse from online trolls – which later led her to having suicidal thoughts.
She was already used to abuse, having had one troll wish ‘cancer, leukaemia and rape’ on her while she was a player, but the attacks leapt up a notch when she was commentating.
In 2020, Karen was bombarded with sexist and abusive messages and eventually deleted her social media. In 2021, she opened up about how the abuse caused her to have suicidal thoughts.
Karen said she hasn’t been able to get over that time in her life, adding: ‘It floored me as a human, completely floored me.’
She said that she is using Strictly to help ‘rebuild confidence’ after being ‘crushed’ by the sexist abuse she faced as a pundit.
Opening up to Women’s Health UK on the Just As Well podcast about getting back to herself after the ‘negative’ backlash she had to endure for simply doing her job.
Karen explained: ‘I think I had it quite bad about four years ago, that was very, very challenging. But since then, whether you like it or not, you have to build resilience.
‘And I think for me, my attitude – put my athlete hat on – is to be the best version of myself. Work as hard as I can, be a great team player, and actually what we learned in football was never to impress your manager, impress your teammates.
‘So for me, if I’m next to someone like a Roy Keane or an Ian Wright, or whoever it might be, if they’re happy with me and they know I worked hard, they know I’ve done my research, they know I’ve done my prep, then that’s all that matters to me…
‘The rest, I can’t control what people think about me. I genuinely can’t. I’ve had to just go with that mindset.
‘But Jesus Christ, it has knocked my confidence…it’s why I wanted to do Strictly as well to rebuild my confidence again because the negativity has crushed me.’
