‘Dancing With the Stars’: Kenya Moore Discloses Painful Injury

Dancing With the Stars Disney Week was far from a magical time for Kenya Moore. As the Real Housewives of Atlanta star and her pro dancing partner Brandon Armstrong stepped into the ballroom for another week of dancing, Moore revealed that she had to dance through a painful injury when a lift gone wrong left her convinced she “broke her ribs.”

Moore suffered the injury during Monday night’s Disney Heroes night as she and Armstrong performed a contemporary dance to “How Far I’ll Go” from Moana. Opening up about the scary scenario in a post-show presser following the two-night Disney Week event, according to Us Weekly, Moore revealed that she “wasn’t feeling good” during her Monday night performance, which left her in “excruciating pain.” She went on to reveal that she injured herself when she “jumped on” Armstrong for a lift and “just landed wrong. I landed on my two bottom ribs, and I thought I broke them.” Moore added that while still “in the air,” she was “sure I broke my ribs. I just went [gasp] and I couldn’t breathe.” Although she initially believed she could walk it off, Moore eventually had to see a doctor.

“Later, I was like, ‘Brandon, I got to go to urgent care and get an x-ray. I think I broke my ribs,’” she recalled. “So, the doctor came today, and I’m OK. He said it’s just going to take some time. And yeah, the show is very helpful [with] just making sure that I was OK. But I’m in a lot of pain.”

Still suffering from the injury, Moore returned to the ballroom on Tuesday for night two of Disney Week, she and Armstrong performing a Viennese Waltz to Ariana Grande’s “Dangerous Woman,” an homage to Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Moore revealed that she “danced through” her injuries, including injuries to her ribs and knee, for the performance, which ultimately landed the duo in the bottom two alongside Matt James and Lindsay Arnold. Luck proved to be on Moore and Armstrong’s side, however, and they were saved from going home by judges Derek Hough and Len Goodman.

“They say they saw value in us being in the competition. So we appreciate that,” Moore said, later adding, “When you dance with the pain, you know, we dance through it. And that’s what I think champions are made of too – just having that focus and making sure that nothing gets in your way.”

New episodes of Dancing With the Stars air Mondays at 8 p.m. ET on ABC. With James and Arnold’s elimination, as well as the elimination of Brian Austin Green and Sharna Burgess, only 11 teams remain in the competition.