Karen Byrne on her engagement to Jake Carter and why she isn't planning a wedding yet

Dancing With the Stars judge Karen Byrne is in a good place - she's loving being on live TV, running her dance studio and being engaged to her best friend, Jake Carter. She credits the gym for keeping her strong,  mentally and physically 

Judge Karen Byrne during the live show of RTE’s Dancing With The Stars. Pic:Kyran O’Brien

“I see us as each other’s number-one fan,” says Dancing with the Stars judge Karen Byrne. “I want to see Jake succeed, and he’s the same with me.”

Jake is Liverpudlian singer-songwriter Jake Carter, whom Byrne first met in 2018, when they were partnered on season two of the hit show. (“One of the producers was like, ‘You’re going to dance with Jake. He’s a singer. And I was like, ‘OK, who’s that, haven’t a clue?’,” Byrne recalls.) Byrne and Carter won the coveted glitterball trophy that year (she partnered Paralympic athlete Jason Smyth to victory in 2024), but the two didn’t get together romantically until after the show. 

For the duration of Dancing with the Stars’s run, with gruelling 12-hour days the norm, Byrne neither had time for romance, nor, she says, the inclination. “I was older than Jake” — she was born in 1992, he in 1998 — “so I never even looked at him like that. He was just one of my friends.”

Karen Byrne and partner Jake Carter

Then, the show ended. “I was like, ‘Oh God, I actually love spending time with him, and I’m not going to see him every single day’,” Byrne says. “That was when the penny dropped.” (Jake, the production team later told her, had been smitten “from day one”. “They said, ‘Actually, he was like a puppy dog’. I never even noticed.”) In hindsight, Byrne is glad friendship came first. “He’s my best friend. I think that’s why our relationship ended up working.”

Tomorrow will be their first Valentine’s Day as an engaged couple. Carter famously proposed to Byrne on the Dancing with the Stars set in March last year, with Lenny, their cavapoo, in tow. (She said yes). He is, she says, a romantic, as well as an old-school gentleman, bringing her “coffee in bed in the mornings and a cup of tea at night”.

They are both grafters and each other’s best cheerleader — “We both have such drive that I couldn’t imagine ever being with somebody that wasn’t pushing me to succeed” — with their bond encompassing the personal and the professional.

They’ve done two seasons of hit podcast The Carter Couch with Jake’s sibling, country-music star Nathan Carter. Then, alongside Byrne’s dance school and Carter’s music school, the duo run a stage school together and also host dance retreats in the Spanish sunshine. “He will do the entertainment side in the evenings and then I do the dance classes in the day. In that sense, we work well together. Not many couples would probably like to do what we do together. For us, it works,” Byrne says.

Karen Byrne and partner Jake Carter

Carter tempers Byrne’s tendency to procrastinate. “I put everything on the long finger, whereas, he’s, ‘Let’s get it done’.” Their focus is on getting a mortgage and moving on from renting. “That’s the goal. We’re engaged and it’s brilliant, but the main thing is I want to get a house and settle down before planning a wedding. I haven’t even thought of a wedding yet. Hopefully, in the next couple of months, we’ll find out where we’re going to plan on living. That, to me, is more important.”

Byrne’s refreshingly nonchalant about all things wedding, revealing that she’d “happily have a wedding with just me, Jake, and Lenny”, and that it’s Jake who’s more inclined towards a big bash, but also admits that “as soon as we start planning, I’ll probably be the bridezilla and want everything”.

A childhood passion

Byrne has been dancing since she was five. She dabbled in various styles until she found ballroom and Latin, “and the rest is history”. She loved the fact that it was “a bit different” from what everyone else was doing, and the discipline of it had her “hooked”.

“They couldn’t get rid of me. I was the first one in the hall and the last one leaving every class. It’s crazy to think that’s what I’m still doing now and have a living out of it.”

Byrne has taught dance since she was 16, opening her own school in 2012, and sees firsthand its benefits for children and adults alike. “It’s great for your mental health. The adults who come to my studio love it, because they’re not necessarily wanting to go to the gym to get fit and feel good about themselves. But dancing has a social aspect and a fitness aspect, so it works hand in hand.”

She and her pupils also have “great crack in the class”, she says.

Byrne has a punishing workload. “Running the studio, being self-employed, it’s hard, especially when you’re on Dancing with the Stars and weekends are gone, and you’re back to it on a Monday morning. The gym and long walks with the dog are how I switch off. It’s the best thing ever to have a little friend like Lenny. He comes everywhere with us. We come as a trio: It’s me, Jake, and Lenny.”

Karen Byrne, partner Jake Carter, and dog Lenny

The gym is a non-negotiable in her schedule, and she lifts weights and has a personal trainer.

“I wouldn’t mentally be able to function if I didn’t go to the gym. If I’m having a bad day, the first thing I want to do is push myself out the door to go to the gym. I’ve always loved anything fitness-based.”

Exercise is her happy place, even on holiday, when she and Jake will be “up and out and walking and sightseeing. I think it always makes you feel better once you keep your body moving.” Almost three decades of dancing have taken a toll on Byrne’s body. Back pain prompted an MRI, which revealed wear and tear.

“Now, it’s at the point where I manage it well. There are certain exercises I know I can’t do in the gym, where before I was doing them, and not really understanding why I couldn’t walk the next day. I’m actually fine now.”

When she was growing up, her mother was “mad in to the dancing”, while her dad “was mad in to fitness”, so she didn’t lick it off the road. Her dad is also passionate about healthy eating. “He still makes his own bread. He sends it up to me.”

From dancer to judge

The transition from Dancing With the Stars dance professional to judge was “definitely a scary and daunting transition”, says Byrne. “Now, you’re sitting on a panel, and you’re like, ‘Oh, hang on. I actually have to criticise these people’. It’s very hard to criticise somebody when they’re doing something so out of their comfort zone,” she says. But the fact that she could empathise was key to her accepting the role. “I know what a Monday morning is like. I know how hard it is to get somebody out on live television to do a dance, and how tough the week is. So I was like, ‘if I can sit on that panel and be that encouraging person and give them any experience I have that will help them, then I’d love to do it’.”

Being a judge has given Byrne a different perspective on being on television, and she’s realised how much she loves the adrenaline rush. “I actually love it so much. That’s when I feel most myself, believe it or not, is when I know it’s live; you get that buzz around live TV. So I definitely would look at doing more telly if the right opportunity came up.”

Exposure comes with its downsides, especially the trolls or haters on social media. Byrne has a sizeable online following, but is in no way a slave to content creation. “I’m not really the biggest social-media person,” she says. “Maybe I should get better, but I’m very content in my life.

I’m happy with what I have. I’m happy with my dance studio. I’m delighted doing Dancing with the Stars, with our dance retreat [in Spain]

Regardless of what I share on social media, that’s not going to change that.”

Comments online are largely positive, but even if they weren’t, down-to-earth Byrne says she wouldn’t take it on board anyway. “I’m very lucky and privileged to do what I do. Anyone who has anything negative to say, it doesn’t affect me, thankfully.”

The Ballyfermot woman is, she says, from “a very grounded background”.

It’s evident that stability has nurtured confidence and self-assurance in her, along with an ability to stop and ‘smell the roses’.

“I have a great family. I’m with Jake. I met him on the show. I have more than enough of what I want in life, so you can’t get caught up in anyone who has a negative thing [to say] or mightn’t like you. That’s life. Not everyone is going to like you.”

Karen Byrne and partner Jake Carter

The 100th episode of Dancing with the Stars is imminent, and in advance of that, Byrne was among those asked how the show had changed her life.

“It has changed my life,” she says emphatically. While she was happy as she was, dancing and running her school, the show has given her opportunities she couldn’t have envisioned when she agreed to be one of its professional dancers. It’s also given her a sliding-doors moment. Had she not been free to join the show, “I wouldn’t have met Jake. It’s just mad how your life is planned out for you.”

‘Dancing with the Stars’ continues on RTÉ One at 6.30pm every Sunday night and is also available on the RTÉ Player For details of Karen’s dance classes, stage school, and dance retreats in Spain, see karenbyrnestudios.com