Vegan Former Lioness Karen Carney Wins Strictly Come Dancing

Vegan former Lioness Karen Carney has won Strictly Come Dancing. Carney and her professional partner Carlos Gu beat West End actress Amber Davies and social media star George Clarke in tonight's final to lift the Glitterball trophy, PA reports.

Carney is the first footballer ever to win the BBC show, and Gu becomes the first openly gay and Asian man to win it. It was also the last live weekend show hosted together by Tess Daly and Claudia Winkleman.

The former midfielder won 144 caps for England across 14 years before retiring in 2019, and now works as a broadcaster for TNT Sports and ITV Sport. After the result was announced, she said:

I can't believe it. I just want to say thank you to everybody that has supported our journey, and supported us. Thank you to this wonderful gentleman, we are a team and I couldn't have done it without you.

Carney has been vegan for more than seven years and says the switch "changed her life". She went vegan in her final year at Chelsea, she told Closer, as Plant Based News reports:

When I was at Chelsea, I was struggling with mental health, and when I did research, the one thing that came back was that a vegan diet could help, and also with inflammation. I only did it for the last year, and all the inflammation in my ankle went, and all my stats went through the roof.

She also found a kindred spirit in Gu. "I've never met anyone who eats or loves tofu as much as me!" she said.

Football has plenty of plant-based stars. Alex Morgan went vegan and then won the Women’s World Cup, Hector Bellerin became a shareholder in vegan club Forest Green Rovers, and Forest Green themselves won League Two.

Keep dancing. Powered by plants (and a lot of tofu).