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 and spin off series Show Me What You're Made Of UK''. 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
2008 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 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 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'' which investigated the lives of young Native Americans and the
Dakota Access Pipeline protests.
2018–present In April 2018, Dooley took part in a
BBC show,
Celebrities on the NHS Front-line, to celebrate the 70th birthday of the
National Health Service. In the 2018 series of
Stacey Dooley Investigates, she travelled to Russia,
Florida, Iraq and Hungary to explore more challenging issues such as child exploitation, sex offenders, war, domestic violence,
pollution in the fashion industry and coming face-to-face with an ISIS soldier for which she won a
One World Media Award. The episodes of this series won the title of the Most Watched Documentaries on
BBC iPlayer. Dooley was appointed a
Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the
2018 Birthday Honours for services to broadcasting. In 2012, and again in 2015, Dooley was a member of the judging panel for
The Observer Ethical Awards. On 16 August 2018, Dooley was announced as the eighth contestant to take part in the
sixteenth series of
Strictly Come Dancing. On 15 December 2018, she won the series with her dance partner
Kevin Clifton. Following her win, shortly afterwards the BBC announced Dooley as co-presenter of
New Year Live on BBC One, with another
Strictly 2018 contestant,
Joe Sugg. She also took part in BBC One's
Children in Need where she explored the number of homeless young people in the UK. Dooley then began presenting the BBC Three reality competition series ''
Glow Up: Britain's Next Make-Up Star. In July 2019, it was announced that Dooley would be a guest judge on RuPaul's Drag Race UK. In August 2019, she released the documentaries Stacey Meets the IS Brides
and Stacey Dooley: Face to Face with The Bounty Hunters'' which became the most watched documentary on BBC IPlayer. In 2020, Dooley appeared in
Jessie Ware's music video for "
Save a Kiss" and the game show ''
Michael McIntyre's The Wheel. Dooley also appeared in a new episode of Stacey Dooley Investigates "The Whale Hunters"'' In 2021, Dooley, with
Turi King, presented the BBC programme
DNA Family Secrets which helps people solve family mysteries regarding their ancestry, missing relatives and genetic diseases. In 2022, Dooley competed in
series 2 of
The Masked Dancer as Prawn Cocktail. In April 2024, it was announced that Dooley would be making her stage debut as Jenny in
2:22 A Ghost Story at the
Gielgud Theatre. Her final show was in August of that year. == Personal life ==