Strictly Star Karen Hardy Pregnant With Second Child

Strictly Star Karen Hardy Pregnant With Second Child
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PA

Former Strictly Come Dancing star Karen Hardy has announced that she is expecting a second child with her husband, Conrad Murray.

The ballroom expert, who whirled her way to victory on the BBC dancing contest in 2006 with cricketer Mark Ramprakash, teased Twitter followers in the run-up to her appearance on Strictly's sister show, It Takes Two, with promises of 'a bit of a surprise'.

Karen, 44, finally shared the baby news on the programme, on which she regularly appears to comment on technical aspects of the contestants' performances. She joked to host Zoe Ball: "People might think I've been eating lots of pies - I've not."

"I'm delighted to announced that today I'm officially 20 weeks pregnant!"

Karen left the programme after the 2008 series, in which she partnered Gary Rhodes, to concentrate on her dancing school.

She was quick to assure her followers that her pregnancy wouldn't be slowing her down on the dance floor.

The new arrival will be her second child with fellow dancer Conrad Murray, whom she married in 2003. Their son Callum was born in 2005, and Karen has previously spoken of her battle with postnatal depression.

"I used to be very bubbly, but after I had Callum I felt I'd lost my identity," she confided in an interview on a fansite. "When he was about nine months old, I recognised that I was very depressed. It was a delayed reaction to the birth."

At that moment, Strictly judge Len Goodman reached out to her to appear on the second series of the show in 2005.

She described her first series on the show as 'one of the most difficult times of my life', but credits dance partner Bill Turnball with restoring her self-confidence, saying the BBC news presenter 'will never know how much he helped me'.