Jenna Dewan opened up about the mental toll of competing on Dancing With the Stars.
“I keep saying that I knew it would be hard. I knew that would be a physically challenging situation. I didn’t realize how emotionally and mentally tough the whole process is too,” Dewan, 45, exclusively told Us after her Mariah Carey Night performance on Tuesday, October 6. “But it’s a good tough.”
Dewan has enjoyed how the experience “challenges” her, adding, “That’s why you feel so alive while doing this. It’s all the good things, but with that comes all the colors. All the shades.”
The Rookie actress has been competing with pro Val Chmerkovskiy since season 35 began in September. The duo quickly became a topic of conversation due to Dewan’s past dance experience, though she has never trained in ballroom styles.
Despite the offscreen commentary, Dewan has remained focused on making it far in the competition.
“We are here working so hard and we’re giving literally our all to this competition,” she told Us. “And with that comes an earthing of different sides of yourself and emotions and realizing that the best stuff comes from just being honest and real and open and vulnerable.”
After receiving some harsh critiques from the judges in previous weeks, Dewan was thrilled with the reaction to her and Chmerkovskiy’s rumba to Mariah Carey’s “My All,” which earned them a 24 out of 30.
“I think the dance and the song and the moment was just there for us to show that. It was emotional and awesome,” she noted. “That was such an incredible moment. We’ve worked so hard and I think our intention really was to be grounded in the moment and show our emotions and be vulnerable and slow down and be softer and show a different side of us as a couple.”
Chmerkovskiy, 40, is proud to see how much Dewan has improved.
“I’ve seen her confidence be humbled week after week. She was humble already,” he shared. “That’s part of the game. I think it’s important to have a little bit of an ego cleanse and have a little bit of a struggle.”
He continued: “It makes moments like tonight that much more triumphant and makes me that much more proud of us. Because without that hardship, you’re not gonna ever enjoy the true nectar of the fruits of your labor. We really labored for the last month and a half and tonight was the culmination of that.”
Chmerkovskiy also spoke to Us about navigating feedback from fans — positive or negative.
“People are people. I get so much love, and so I don’t block out the noise,” he told Us. “Listen, I’m a human. Some of the audacity people have to write things, or now make videos of things, I can’t even tell if you’re a real person or [artificial intelligence]. We live in an environment where these networks have brought us all together, but they also empowered a lot of systems at play that participate in [the] rage bait economy and, you know, we’re all evolving to find tools to deal with that type of noise.”
He continued, “I don’t think our generation was raised to be equipped for that. We were equipped for that in the real world. We’re learning how to equip ourselves in the social media world, but at the end of the day, I’m not naïve to all the love that we receive and all the sanity that I get to experience on socials.”
Dancing With the Stars airs on ABC and Disney+ Tuesdays at 8 p.m. ET.
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