‘Dancing With the Stars’: Sailor Brinkley-Cook Shares Exhausting Confession About Joining Show on Short-Notice

Sailor Brinkley-Cook may have been a last-minute replacement on the Dancing With the Stars Season 28 roster, but the model is proving to be strong competitor already. Sailor replaced her mother, Christie Brinkley, in the newest season of the ABC reality competition series after she was injured while rehearsing. The replacement happened just three days before the season premiere Monday, but Sailor still had one of the highest-scoring dance numbers of the first night of competition.

Since then, the 21-year-old model has been keeping fans up to date on her progress, including a post to her Instagram Stories Thursday on the hardwood floor of a dance studio writing, “Dancing is the hardest thing I’ve ever done with my body.”

She also posted a photo at the dance studio on social media along with her partner Val Chmerkovskiy.

“Hey Val, you ready to rumba? Meet you under the mirror ball 8pm Monday bro,” she wrote on the caption of the photo.

Fans took to the comments section of the post to praise her for taking on the grueling challenge of participating in the series.

“It’s amazing how much she looks like her mom. Stunning [red heart emoji],” one user commented.

“So happy for you to get the greatest pro in Val. You will be in great hands. All the very best for a wonderful and long season together,” another user wrote.

“You look just like your mom,” another user commented.

“I’ve always wanted to learn how to dance. Enjoy yourself! Can’t wait to see you on TV!” Another one added.

While fans seemed to have embraced the replacement, reports surfaced that the last-minute change was not warmly received by some of the other celebrities, including singers Ally Brooke and Lauren Alaina.

“Ally and Lauren seem irritated that another young celebrity has come into the mix,” a source told Radar earlier this week. “They are annoyed there is another young girl to go up against.”

The source added the two musicians “counted Christie out because of her age.”

“I’m doing this mostly for my mom! I just want to make her happy and make her proud,” Sailor told Good Morning America. “She loved doing this, she loves dancing and she loves performing and getting hurt was her worst nightmare.”

Dancing With the Stars airs Mondays at 8 p.m. ET on ABC.