'Dancing With the Stars' Pro Jenna Johnson Suffered Injury During First Dance With JoJo Siwa
Dancing With the Stars team Jenna Johnson and JoJo Siwa may have stepped off the stage during the Season 30 premiere with the highest score of the night, but their much-applauded routine wasn't without a few hiccups. Although the duo's quickstep to "Are You Gonna Be My Girl" by Jet earned them 29 points out of a possible 40 points, grabbing the night's top score involved Johnson pushing through an injury.
Opening up about her historic Dancing With the Stars premiere routine in an interview with Page Six, the DWTS vet revealed that she "tweaked" her knee during her debut dance with Siwa, which marked the show's first same-sex pairing. According to Johnson — who said in hindsight she "should have known that there was going to be a flaw in the system" because "no one had ever done this before" — as she and Siwa were wowing the judges and viewers at home with their performance, she slipped on Siwa's dress. This resulted in her feet coming out from under her, and while she was "in that process of trying to squeeze and not fall ... my knee kind of tweaked, kind of slipped out of place, came back in."
"Obviously, I'm so disappointed because I feel like I took away from JoJo's moments, because this was such an epic night for us, for Dancing With the Stars, for her," Johnson said. "But I think that even with this stupid little slip-up, [JoJo] did incredible. Even with that fall, I think it highlighted her, because it showed what a great partner she is."
As Johnson danced through an injured knee, it didn't seem to have any impact on their score. In fact, she and Siwa took home the highest score of the night, with a total of 29 points out of 40. Bruno Tonioli, who dubbed the performance the "groundbreaking moment we've been waiting for," gave the pair a 7, as did Len Goodman and Derek Hough. Carrie Ann Inaba gave them an 8.
While Johnson did not reveal how serious the injury was, she did tell the outlet that "they made me take a day off to just rest." Calling it a "very unfortunate" scenario, she said she is now "icing the knee, but I feel fine. I did some therapy last night." Neither she nor Siwa are letting injuries get in the way of rehearsals. With Johnson declaring that "there's no way that I would miss out on week two," she revealed that Siwa FaceTimed her twice Tuesday to check in — and to make sure she was practicing her week two dance correctly. Johnson called her celeb partner a "star student, already practicing at home." Fans can catch Johnson and Siwa when they head to the ballroom on Monday for their second performance.