Dancing With the Stars pro Jenna Johnson strives to make the environment as comfortable as possible for her partners — and their significant others.
“I think it’s our job to make sure that we can do everything in our power as a partner to make our partners’ significant others feel safe and part of the experience,” Johnson, 30, said on the Monday, September 30, episode of the “Trading Secrets” podcast. “To be open with our rehearsals, show them videos, make them feel part of it, so it doesn’t feel like there’s this hidden thing happening.”
While the dances often look intimate in the ballroom, significant others will see Johnson “yelling at him for four hours” and “nitpicking” if they watch rehearsal.
“I think just being as open as possible, and making them feel part of the experience really helps,” she added.
Johnson is working with former Bachelor Joey Graziadei during DWTS season 33 and has already navigated comments from fans about their chemistry. After the premiere episode earlier this month, Graziadei’s fiancée, Kelsey Anderson, took to social media to address remarks that she’s “so strong” watching the duo dance together.
“So many people are like, ‘Kelsey, why is Jenna touching your man like that?’ And honestly, I don’t know, maybe because it’s her job,” Anderson, 26, said in a TikTok video earlier this month. “Maybe because she’s a professional dancer and she has to touch him to dance. I don’t know, that’s my understanding of it.”
Anderson, who got engaged to Graziadei, 29, during The Bachelor season 28 earlier this year, pointed to the origins of their relationship.
“Let’s do a little recap here. Do y’all remember how Joey and I met? We met on The Bachelor. He was dating 31 other women while he was dating me and I won the Super Bowl ring,” Anderson continued. “I have to have a certain level of security to go through all that. Joey and I [are] still together and strong after a year of all that craziness.”
When it comes to their romance, Anderson added that Graziadei gives her “security” and “reassurance.”
“We are all good in the hood. If I can survive that, I can survive watching him dance with a married woman with a cute little baby boy,” Anderson concluded. “Crushing it. I am very proud of Joey, I think that everyone should be. He is killing it. I don’t know if y’all saw those hips on Tuesday but you’ll see them again this next Tuesday and remember to vote for Joey.”
Johnson — who tied the knot with fellow DWTS pro Val Chmerkovskiy in 2019 — supported Anderson’s message, writing, “That’s my girl right there.”
On Monday’s podcast, Johnson shared more insight into what it’s like to have a dance partner.
“This was just part of my training,” Johnson said of doing “intimate moves” with a male partner since she was 10 years old. “So I think that obviously as dancers we are a little bit desensitized to how intimate it is and how completely foreign that is for somebody stepping into our world for the first time. It’s just part of our craft and our artistry. But I can totally understand how abrasive that visual is for a significant other to see or to watch.”
From Johnson’s perspective, the DWTS pairings who have “good chemistry and good friendships and look like they get along” tend to “do better” on the show.
“You don’t want to see two people that are so cold and want nothing to do with each other,” she noted. “But I think they also appreciate dance and art and chemistry and how magic that partnership can really be and flourish to be.”
Dancing With the Stars airs simultaneously on ABC and Disney+ Tuesdays at 8 p.m. ET.
