How serious is the injury before the premiere?
People and TV Insider reported that De Laurentiis hurt the toe while preparing for the competition. The bruising may be the most obvious problem, but her comments throughout rehearsals suggest the larger challenge has involved her entire body, plus the part of her brain expected to remember choreography.
De Laurentiis said training exposed weak quadriceps and activated “muscles I didn’t know I had.” After her first day, a security guard reportedly offered to help her downstairs because she looked unsteady. She also described the mental fatigue by saying her brain felt “like mush.” Ballroom dancing, it turns out, is not simply cooking while standing farther away from the counter.
She told Entertainment Weekly that rehearsals began “really, really rough,” despite attempts to earn some leniency by feeding her professional partner, Alan Bersten. Speaking on Good Morning America, she called dancing “a lot rougher than I thought it would be” and joked that she had apparently failed to inherit the ability of her dancer grandmother.
Maria Menounos, De Laurentiis’s friend and a contestant on Season 14, advised her to practise independently between scheduled sessions. That guidance now comes with one practical complication: practising alone is less appealing when a toenail appears to be preparing its own exit.
Why did Giada De Laurentiis finally join the show?
De Laurentiis said ABC had approached her 10 times before she agreed to compete. Her daughter, 18-year-old Jade De Laurentiis Thompson, ultimately helped persuade her after leaving home for college.
“This time, I thought, with my daughter pushing me and with my daughter out of my house, this is a really good time for me to go on a new adventure and push myself to do something I’ve never done,” she told E! News.
Even then, De Laurentiis nearly backed out before taking Jade to college.
“I tried to get out of it,” she admitted. “Right before I dropped her off, I was like, ‘I can’t. This is just too much.’ And she’s like, ‘Mom! Pull up your boots and let’s go. Get it together.’”
The chef now enters the competition without previous professional ballroom experience and with a bruised foot. It is certainly a new adventure, though perhaps not the version used in the recruitment pitch.
Who else is competing in Season 35?
ABC has announced 16 celebrity and professional pairings. De Laurentiis will dance with Alan Bersten, while two contestants with substantial performance backgrounds could make the field particularly demanding.
Actor and dancer Jenna Dewan, paired with Val Chmerkovskiy, previously worked as a backup dancer for Janet Jackson. Glee and Step Up actor Harry Shum Jr., partnered with Jenna Johnson, also brings extensive dance experience.
Dewan has rejected suggestions that her background makes the contest unfair, arguing that ballroom requires a different technique.
“Let’s be clear. It’s two different languages,” she told Entertainment Weekly. Dewan said her ability to learn choreography and perform would help, but added that she had to unlearn habits from other dance styles.
“There’s parts of my dance training that’s helpful, obviously,” she said. “I’ve learned choreography, I can perform, but there is a certain sense of unlearning for me.”
For complete beginners, that distinction may offer limited comfort. Learning one dance language from scratch is still a considerable assignment, particularly when several competitors are already fluent in related ones.
When does Dancing With the Stars Season 35 begin?
Season 35 will premiere over two nights, September 15 and 16, at 8 p.m. ET. The episodes will air live on ABC and Disney+, then become available the following day on Hulu.
Alfonso Ribeiro and Julianne Hough return as hosts. Carrie Ann Inaba, Bruno Tonioli and Derek Hough will serve as judges.
Barring a late medical setback, De Laurentiis and Bersten remain scheduled to compete. Her immediate task is less glamorous than mastering a perfect routine: get through rehearsals, protect the injured toe and determine whether the nail intends to remain part of the cast.
