Strictly's Karen says she 'belonged' with Stacey Dooley's partner Kevin Clifton
Karen Hauer has admitted that she and ex-husband, Kevin Clifton, 'belonged together' in an emotional interview (Image: YouTube/We Need To Talk)
Karen Hauer has admitted that she and ex-husband, Kevin Clifton, "belonged together" in an emotional interview following their divorce. The Strictly Come Dancing stars were married for three years before they called it quits in 2018, leaving their legion of loyal fans heartbroken.
Kevin, 42, is now in a relationship with BBC star, Stacey Dooley, 38, who he met on Strictly and with whom he shares daughter, Minnie, two. However, opening up about her former relationship with the dancer from Lincolnshire, Karen, 43, insists she "belonged" with Kevin. Lifting the lid on their break-up on Married At First Sight star, Paul C. Brunson's We Need to Talk podcast, she shared: "This one hurt because we belonged together. Do you know what I mean? It was like you wouldn't say each other's names without following the other person's name. READ MORE: Amy Dowden wows in bikini on Dubai holiday - a year after getting cancer all clear
Strictly Come Dancing star, Karen Huaer, was married to Kevin Clifton for three years before they divorced in 2018 (Image: WireImage)
"It was one of these that we're like, 'What? What?' We built stuff together. I felt that he distanced himself from me, but I was probably doing the same because I felt if he didn't want me then, okay, I'll retreat.
"I'll give you your space. It was one of those that we're both not talking about it. So, I'm like, do you want a divorce? Do you want to split up? I don't know what I want to do."
Revealing the break-up happened over a year behind the scenes of Strictly, she continued: "What do you want to do? Do you know what you want? I don't know what I want. Okay. So, do we are broken up or?
"So, it took a while actually. It took about a year behind the scenes, in front of the scenes, everything was normal."
Claiming she would have stayed to work things out if she thought Kevin had wanted the same, Karen, who has been married three times, added: "We fell apart and I obviously didn't know what was happening in his mind whether he wanted to be with me or not. I knew that I would have worked on it.
"I would have stayed but at the same time I couldn't be with someone who wasn't sure of whether they wanted to be with me or not. I couldn't just wait."
After the break-up, Karen, who split up from her third husband in 2023, was branded a cheat after fans, not realising that she and Kevin had broken up, accused her of having an affair after she was spotted with someone else.
Kevin is now in a relationship with Stacey Dooley, with whom he shares a daughter with (Image: PA)
Insisting she wasn't unfaithful to Kevin, Karen said: "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.
"And then all of a sudden I was just walking with this person and then all of a sudden, you know, I'm portrayed as someone that has cheated on him and then obviously he [Kevin] saw the pictures and was like, 'what'? So there was a big misunderstanding in all of that because I wasn't, actually I was literally waiting to be loved."
After their split, Karen and Kevin still continued to work together respectfully on Strictly as the Venezuelan-American shared: "We respected one another, you know. We never said a bad word about one another. I think that's because we hold each other to such a high regard, you know. There will always be love there."
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