Jenna Johnson Opens up About Challenges ‘Dancing With the Stars’ Poses to Her and Val Chmerkovskiy’s Marriage

Dancing With the Stars pro Jenna Johnson recently opened up about the challenges that the reality competition show poses to her marriage with fellow pro Val Chmerkovskiy, sharing that they are having to make intentional efforts to remain connected. “It was a challenge for us to find a good balance of work life and home life because we were constantly talking about work, and this was a few years ago and so we really pushed ourselves to finish work at the door, come home and just be humans, just be a married couple,” Johnson exclusively told Us Weekly. “Obviously, [this] season [it] has been a little bit easier to do that because we can’t live together because of COVID.”

Johnson went on to explain, “So from afar, we’re just checking in on each other. We’ll send each other some sneak peek videos and be like, ‘What do you think? What do you think?’ But yeah, I think that that’s been something that we’ve really worked on is leaving work at work and just coming home and being with each other.” Johnson and Chmerkovskiy married back in 2019, and are competing against one another on Season 30 of Dancing With The Stars. Johnson is partnered with singer/YouTube star JoJo Siwa, and Chmerkovskiy is dancing with Olivia Jade Giannulli, a social media influencer who is the daughter of Full House actress Lori Loughlin and fashion mogul Mossimo Giannulli.

Speaking about having to be separate from Chmerkovskiy while they’re competing, Johnson said it’s “not fun,” though she understands why it’s necessary for safety protocols. “My love language is physical touch, so I just want to be full-on kissing him. Like, yeah, that’s just me,” Johnson confessed. 

“It’s been a little bit difficult, but we both have the same end goal and we know how much this means to each other,” she continued. “So, COVID is a real thing, and we want to support one another through the season. I think he has an incredible shot this season with Olivia [Jade Giannulli]. I just wanna be there to support him, but yeah, thank goodness for FaceTime.”

Notably, Johnson and Chmerkovskiy will be skipping the next Dancing With the Stars tour, and the professional dancer explained that it was something they felt was necessary for their marriage to focus on their relationship. “I’m so excited for the cast that is going. It was a hard decision, but I think kind of [what was] best for us just personally and where we’re at in life,” she revealed. 

“I think we’ve always prioritized work over ourselves, and I think this is a moment for us to just enjoy being married and being together, being home,” Johnson added. “But we also have a few projects coming up that we’ve been working on. So, we’re also going to be really excited to be working on those.” Dancing With the Stars airs Mondays at 8 p.m. ET, on ABC.