Karen Carney has revealed what she did in the moments after being crowned the latest Strictly Come Dancing champion, before making a feral discovery.

As fans of the BBC One dance show know, the former footballer was among the 15 famous faces to sign up for the popular programme’s 2025 series, where she was paired with professional dancer Carlos Gu, who got a celebrity partner after missing out on competing the previous year.

Karen emerged as an early favourite in the competition after showing promise in week one when she became the first footballer to top the Strictly leaderboard in 18 years.

However, after being pipped to the post in the scoring and in the eyes of the bookies in the lead up to the final, it was in December, weeks after their first performance together, that Karen and Carlos were seen lifting the show’s coveted Glitterball trophy after being announced as Strictly’s 2025 winners by outgoing hosts, Tess Daly and Claudia Winkleman.

Now, Karen has admitted that weeks on from the triumphant moment, her win still hasn’t sunk in. Reuniting with former teammate and podcast co-host Jill Scott on their Long Story Short podcast, Jill welcomed her back and said: “I can’t believe you won Strictly. Can you believe it?”

Karen replied: “No. I can’t believe it either. It feels like a bit of a blur though.” Jill then asked: “Do you wake up on a morning and just stroke your little ball and go, ‘I won Strictly!’?” But Karen insisted: “Absolutely not. How weird would that be?”

Asked whether she thought, at the beginning, she could win, Karen admitted: “No, ’cause I wouldn’t have said, ‘Let’s get a tattoo’ when you asked us on week one!”

But that also seems to be because she was worried at the start how they’d get on. “When I first met Carlos, we had nothing in common. We sat down for like three hours and it was like, you know one of them where I said to him, ‘What team do you follow?’ And he’s like, ‘Don’t watch football.’ And I’m like, ‘Oh, no!’ He’s like, ‘I’ve never been to a game.’ I’m like, ‘Okay.’ He goes, ‘I know nothing about it.’ I was like, ‘Great!’ Then I think I said to him, ‘Alright, what’s your favourite TV show?’ And he got really animated then and he was like, ‘Downton Abbey!’

“And I was like, ‘Oh, I’ve not seen it.’ He actually said, he went, ‘Oh, it’s where I learned English watching that.’ I said, ‘Great.’ He goes, ‘What yours?’ I said, ‘Peaky Blinders.’ I said, ‘That’s where I learned my English, too’ And he said, ‘Oh, tell me some stuff about it.’ I said, ‘Oh, no. It’s full of swear words, so I better not.’ But we had nothing in common at all. Yeah. And it was like even for both of us, I think we’re like, ‘I’m not sure how we’re going to get get through this’. But obviously then you start to get to know each other…”

Jill was also keen to quiz Karen on what happened once the cameras stopped rolling. “It does turn into a big party, but after I’d won, I went back to my room and I’m not going to lie, I I sat sat there and for about half an hour. [I] just sat there just in silence with no one.”

Karen explained it was her and Carlos’ runner, Mimi, who came to find her. “She came in and then I was having a bit of pizza. was starving and I just sat there and then it was actually my manager. He came and was like, ‘You’re missing your own party.’ So I then quickly showered and then went down and I went down and it was just feral.

“Yeah. Like I’ve never seen it. So I was like, ‘Wow”‘ Like Strictly can party. Like everyone was everywhere. One of the rooms had been turned into like beer pong with table tennis. I was like, ‘Where did you get this from?’ Like so efficient. And then all of a sudden it was like everyone had like let loose and yeah it was really cool. And then at the party, I came in, It was so weird. So there was like loads of different like areas and DJs in different areas. There was like multiple DJs. I’m like, ‘What is going on?'”