Yahoo News Strictly Come Dancing pro Karen Hauer reacts to Janette Manrara's quitting decision
Strictly Come Dancing pro Karen Hauer has lent her support to Janette Manrara.
The dancer recently announced she was retiring as a competitor on the BBC show, and would instead be taking over Zoe Ball's hosting role on sister show It Takes Two.
Fellow professional Karen Hauer said the news was "a lovely surprise".
"This is something she's always wanted to do and she's always spoken about it," she told The Mirror.
"We will support her, it goes back to the campaign and women supporting women and she's one of those beautiful women who's always there supporting us, so we'll be right behind her.
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"It's a new chapter for her and she's still very much a part of Strictly and we'll be seeing her all the time.
"I'm going to miss dancing next to her but we'll definitely have lots of projects together in the future."
Speaking of how she'll do presenting alongside Rylan Clark-Neal, Karen added: "She'll be great at it.
"She was there for eight years and she knows exactly what she's talking about – all the ins and outs of the show.
"She'll see it from the dancers' aspect and from the viewers and judges' aspects too."
Janette previously explained why she wanted to present the show, saying on The One Show: "One of my favourite parts of doing Strictly has always been to sit down on that couch and just chat away. It's the most fun.
"I remember meeting Zoe, gosh that was eight years ago now when I did the first It Takes Two sit-down.
"[I was] thinking, 'This is the coolest job ever. You get to sit down, talk about dancing, make people feel good and celebrate their successes on the show'.
"I did say, 'One day I would love to do that', and it's here, here we are!"
Strictly Come Dancing airs on BBC One. It's due to return later in 2021.
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