Stacey Dooley

Stacey Jaclyn Dooley (born 9 March 1987) is an English television presenter, journalist, and media personality. She came to prominence in 2008 when she appeared as a participant on ''Blood, Sweat and T-shirts''. Since then, she has made social-issue-themed television documentaries for BBC Three, concerning child labour and women in developing countries.

Dooley was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2018 Birthday Honours for services to broadcasting. In 2018, she won the sixteenth series of ''Strictly Come Dancing'' with dance partner and now boyfriend Kevin Clifton. From 2019 to 2020, Dooley presented '' Glow Up: Britain's Next Make-Up Star''.

In 2018, Dooley published her debut book, ''Stacey Dooley: On the Front Line with the Women Who Fight Back,'' which became a ''Sunday Times'' Bestseller.

Early life

Stacey Jaclyn Dooley was born on 9 March 1987 in Luton, Bedfordshire. Her father was from Ireland, and left the family when she was two years old. He was an alcoholic who died when Dooley was in her 20s before they could reconcile. She grew up in Luton and studied at Stopsley High School. She left school at 15 and worked as a shop assistant, selling perfumes at Luton Airport. She also worked in a hairdresser's salon in Bramingham. Dooley admitted to going through a short phase of shoplifting with her friends during her youth in Luton. Around that time, she also dated a drug dealer.

Career

2008–2017: Career beginnings and ''Stacey Dooley Investigates''

Dooley first appeared on television in April 2008 when she travelled to India as one of the participants on the documentary television series ''Blood, Sweat and T-shirts''. Dooley and the other participants were selected to illustrate the typical fashion-obsessed consumer. Thanks to her appearance on the show, and partly because of her interest in labour laws in developing countries, a series was commissioned with Dooley as presenter. ''Stacey Dooley Investigates'' began in August 2009 and a two-part special was shown on BBC Three throughout August and September 2009. It also aired in Australia on ABC2 from 2 June 2010. In October 2010, BBC Three aired two further programmes, the first on former child soldiers in the Democratic Republic of Congo and the second on sex trafficking and underage sex slavery in Cambodia.

In 2011, BBC Three aired ''Tourism and the Truth: Stacey Dooley Investigates''. Over two episodes, Dooley investigated how tourism in Thailand and Kenya affects employees there, in particular with regard to wages, corruption and environmental changes. Dooley also presented the CBBC series ''Show Me What You're Made Of''.

Filmed in Dooley's hometown of Luton, ''My Hometown Fanatics'' was broadcast on BBC Three on 20 February 2012. In the programme, Dooley interviewed Islamists and the English Defence League. A three-part series titled ''Coming Here Soon'' was broadcast on BBC Three in June and July 2012, in which Dooley explored the lives of young people in three countries affected by the global financial crisis: Greece, Ireland and Japan. The programme on Japan was criticised by some because it ignored the Samaritans guidelines on reporting of suicide. While Dooley was in the United States in 2012, she created two series of ''Stacey Dooley in the USA'' where she investigated issues affecting teens across America such as: ''Girls Behind Bars, Border Wars, Homelessness'' and ''Kids in the Crossfire''. In 2015, Dooley created the documentary series ''Beaten By My Boyfriend'' where she investigated domestic abuse within the UK.

In 2016, Dooley presented ''Stacey Dooley in Cologne: The Blame Game'', about the 2015 New Year's Eve sexual assaults in Germany, which aired on 29 January. She also presented ''Stacey Dooley: Hate and Pride in Orlando'' where she travelled to Orlando, Florida in the aftermath of the Pulse Bar shootings. On 30 July, Dooley appeared on the BBC's ''Celebrity Mastermind'' where her specialist subject was the television series ''Girls''.

In November 2016, Dooley appeared in a BBC Three series ''Brainwashing Stacey'', where she went to a US anti-abortion summer camp and then to some African big-game hunters. Stacey also made a documentary ''Sex in Strange Places'' for which she travelled to Turkey, Brazil and Russia to explore people's different attitudes towards sex and prostitution.

In December 2016, Dooley was stopped by police in Tokyo while filming ''Young Sex For Sale In Japan'', a documentary about child sexual exploitation in that country. She was held on the street for two hours by police who were investigating their confrontation with two men "protecting" some of the girls, who had called the police on the film crew. After initially being confronted by two men who demanded "no movies", the pair tried to use physical force against the film crew to make them leave the area. The story was released a few days before the programme was made available in February 2017.

In 2017, Dooley presented CBBC's '' The Pets Factor''. She also presented the documentary ''Canada's Lost Girls'' in March 2017 in which she travelled across Canada investigating the various factors which played a part in the disappearance and murder of over 1,200 Indigenous women. Dooley narrated the documentary ''The Natives: This Is Our America'' where she investigated the lives of young Native Americans, and the Dakota Access Pipeline protests.

2018–present: television career, debut book, and ''Strictly Come Dancing''

In April 2018, Dooley took part in a BBC
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