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Karen Hauer, a professional dancer who joined Strictly Come Dancing in 2012, opened up about her marriage to fellow dancer Kevin Clifton on Paul C Brunson’s podcast, We Need To Talk. The couple, who met in 2011 while performing in Burn The Floor in New York, married in 2015 after both moving to the UK to join the BBC ballroom show. Karen, 43, described their bond, saying they “belonged together” and were so closely associated that their names were rarely mentioned separately. However, their relationship began to unravel, leading to a divorce in 2018 after three years of marriage.
Karen shared that she felt Kevin distanced himself, and she mirrored his withdrawal, retreating to give him space. She explained, “It was one of those where we’re both not talking about it.” For about a year, they maintained a facade of normalcy in public while privately grappling with uncertainty, unsure whether to split or stay together. Karen recalled asking, “Do you want a divorce? Do you want to split up? I don’t know what I want to do. What do you want to do?” She admitted she would have fought to save the marriage if she believed Kevin still wanted to be with her, but his uncertainty led her to stop waiting. She said, “I couldn’t be with someone who wasn’t sure of whether they wanted to be with me or not.”
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During their separation, Karen met someone else, which led to public misconceptions that she had cheated, as their split was not yet public knowledge. She clarified, “It wasn’t someone that I dated or something, it just happened to be someone that I just saw a couple of times and I got snapped up.” The media portrayed her as unfaithful, causing a misunderstanding with Kevin, who then requested a divorce. Karen reflected, “In my mind, it’s almost like something had to happen in order for him to make a decision because I wasn’t going to pull the plug.”
A poignant moment came during a Remembrance Day performance on Strictly, just before their breakup, where Kevin played a soldier and Karen danced with his jacket, symbolizing loss. She recalled, “Throughout the dance, he comes back and dances with me and goes in and out of my life until I finish dancing with the jacket and placing it back on the table. It was literally I’d lost him and it was the end.” Performing this emotional routine in front of an audience, with only one or two takes, mirrored her real-life experience of losing him.
Despite their divorce, Karen and Kevin maintained mutual respect, continuing to work together on Strictly without speaking ill of each other. Karen noted, “We never said a bad word about one another. I think that’s because we hold each other to such a high regard. There will always be love there.” They continued to support and applaud each other professionally. Reflecting on her second divorce, Karen admitted feeling shame and embarrassment, saying, “I felt that I couldn’t keep anyone around me.” She vowed to spend time alone but acknowledged, “I don’t know how to be on my own. And that’s so dangerous.”
After the split, Kevin found love with Stacey Dooley, his 2018 Strictly partner, with whom he won the series and later welcomed a daughter named Minnie. Karen, meanwhile, married Jordan Wyn-Jones in 2022, but that marriage ended in 2024. She is now in a relationship with rugby player Simon Davidson.
