Karen Carney has revealed she contemplated suicide as a result of sexist football trolls as she opened up about self-harming and becoming addicted to sleeping pills during her career.
The Strictly Come Dancing star, 38, played as a winger and midfielder during her professional football career – during which she made 144 appearances for England.
However despite her success as a footballer, and later a pundit for the likes of TNT Sports and Sky Sports, Karen experienced some very low points.
The first was after she moved to the US to play for the Chicago Red Stars in 2009 when a knee operation meant she couldn’t play and she plunged into a depression.
Living in the US but unable to play, Karen told The Guardian she began self-harming and later became addicted to sleeping pills.
She later retired as a player in 2019 and became a pundit, but the abuse she received from online trolls – which is far too common for female pundits – got so bad she started having suicidal thoughts.
Karen Carney has revealed she contemplated suicide as a result of sexist football trolls as she opened up about self-harming and becoming addicted to sleeping pills during her career (Seen earlier this month)
The Strictly Come Dancing star, 38, played as a winger and midfielder during her professional football career – during which she made 144 appearances for England (Seen in 2018)
After signing for Chicago Red Stars in 2009, Karen was forced to have a knee operation and she couldn’t play for the team.
Karen soon started suffering from depression, began self harming and became addicted to sleeping pills.
‘I was in a pretty bad way, I think that has been the hardest thing I’ve ever had to overcome,’ she said.
She left the US early, a year before her contract was up, after her former Arsenal coach Emma Hayes urged her to come back to the UK.
Karen said: ‘I came back purely to … save my life, pretty much.
‘They were, like, “we know you’re not in a good place, but we will do our best to take care of you”.’
After returning to the UK, Karen took a break from football to focus on getting back and she credits her friends for getting her through the tough time.
She finished her career out on a high and re-joined Birmingham City club before playing for Chelsea and retiring in 2019.
Karen has won over Strictly fans this year, with the total dancing novice’s incredible footwork and energy (Seen on Saturday)
Karen retired as a player in 2019 and became a pundit, but the abuse she received from online trolls (Seen in September 2024)
After retirement, Karen moved her focus to commentating – but as a female pundit, the online trolls were relentless.
She was already used to abuse, having had one troll wish ‘cancer, leukaemia and rape’ on her while she was a player, but the attacks leapt up a notch when she was commentating.
In 2020, Karen was bombarded with sexist and abusive messages and eventually deleted her social media. In 2021, she opened up about how the abuse caused her to have suicidal thoughts.
Karen said she hasn’t been able to get over that time in her life, adding: ‘It floored me as a human, completely floored me.’
She recently revealed that she is using Strictly to help ‘rebuild confidence’ after being ‘crushed’ by the sexist abuse she faced as a pundit.
Opening up to Women’s Health UK on the Just As Well podcast about getting back to herself after the ‘negative’ backlash she had to endure for simply doing her job.
Karen explained: ‘I think I had it quite bad about four years ago, that was very, very challenging. But since then, whether you like it or not, you have to build resilience.
‘And I think for me, my attitude – put my athlete hat on – is to be the best version of myself. Work as hard as I can, be a great team player, and actually what we learned in football was never to impress your manager, impress your teammates.
‘So for me, if I’m next to someone like a Roy Keane or an Ian Wright, or whoever it might be, if they’re happy with me and they know I worked hard, they know I’ve done my research, they know I’ve done my prep, then that’s all that matters to me…
‘The rest, I can’t control what people think about me. I genuinely can’t. I’ve had to just go with that mindset.
‘But Jesus Christ, it has knocked my confidence…it’s why I wanted to do Strictly as well to rebuild my confidence again because the negativity has crushed me.’
