JUST JENNIE: Why I Avoided Dancing with the Stars for 3 Decades and Why I'm Back!

0:01 You're listening to I Choose Me with Jenny Garland. Oh my gosh. Okay. I have to share this with you guys. My daughter, Lola, who lives with me currently, said one night we were trying to figure out what to watch. And she said, Mom, let's watch Dancing with the Stars. The new season's on. And I was like, uh, no.

0:24 Hard pass. No thanks. That's been my automatic response since then. My appearance on season five of Dancing with the Stars, I think I have really just not wanted to have anything to do with it. I don't want to see it. I don't want to hear the music and the announcers. It all just takes me right back to those terrifying moments right before I would dance and the whole being judged by professional dancers and competing against professional dancers. And just, it really did a number on me, you guys. I have to be honest. And it's taken me this long to come back from it. And for some reason, maybe I just wanted to be fun. I wanted to be spontaneous.

1:16 But something pulled me back in season 35. How many years is that? 30 years later after I had done the show. And I had a great time doing it. it wasn't that I didn't enjoy dancing or love being partnered with Derek or have so much fun with the costumes and the makeup, but there was something just that shook me to be nervous with just the hearing of the music. So it had such a huge impact on me in so many ways. And I think the person inside of me, just the little me, just like protect yourself.

2:02 Don't put yourself through that again. And since then, I've been asked to go do, you know, alum stuff with them and go on tour or do Dancing with the Stars France or, you know, a lot of different options where I could have put my dance shoes back on. But I always said, no, no, no, no, I don't want to have anything to do with it. And I got to tell you, when I first started watching this, this season 35 and got to see the contestants, some of them I was familiar with, some of them I wasn't.

2:38 And I started to feel all the old feelings again. I started to feel the connection with the dance itself or that incredible feeling of learning something new, challenging myself. to a degree I had never challenged myself before. Really just putting it all out there on the line, doing live TV, dancing in front of the world, in high heels, and just everything that goes in it. And I just sort of reconnected with my passion for all the good parts of it. And there's something, I guess, that is developed in me, maybe a more sense of more confidence in myself or perhaps a true admiration and respect for what it was and how it affected me. But now later in life, being able to sort of unpack all of that and really realize that there's nothing I can't do,

3:49 even if in the moment it was scary as hell. I can go back to that because I know what it takes now. I have such a huge appreciation for this year's contestants and anybody else who's done it since my time there. But just being able to really relate to the people that are under that same strain and stress and excitement and just adrenaline rush. I got the chance to actually interview Giada De Laurentiis, who was on this season, season 35, she was unfortunately one of the first couples voted out, which I was so disappointed in because I could see such growth in her already from her first dance to her second one. And I was excited to see her journey because also her just kind of like honest discussions about it, like when she would

4:48 do her little wraparound packages and talking about how hard it was on her physically. And what a challenge it was to stay focused or to remember the steps and put herself out there like that. I just had this instant draw. I said, I really want to have Giada on the podcast. Let's get her in here. So I'm so glad we were able to do that and really sort of unpack her time there with her. I felt like we had just such a real and honest conversation because it was just two similarly aged women talking. who had been through the same thing and come through it on the other side. And then in that, being able to really evaluate the impact that it had had on her and myself. So it's been so rewarding. I've even

5:37 gone to my mom's the place where she's living and her roommates and said, hey guys, I have a really fun show for us to watch. And I turned on Dancing with the Stars and they were mesmerized for that two hour first episode, the two part whatever thing. And they were just so like, what are we watching? Because they don't remember watching it from before. I don't think my mom even remembers what it was like when I was on it. So it's been a really interesting sort of re- reawakening to something that I had been really afraid of. And just also the opportunity now to, well, at Lola's insistence, after we watched the first episode, we had to go back and watch my episodes. So we went online and found, you know, Jenny Garth dancing the

6:34 cha-cha or something, things like that. And we watched them. And I got to tell you, I was actually shocked. I was surprised that I wasn't as bad as I thought I was in the moment. I was so fearful and just afraid of the judgment and afraid I wasn't good enough and striving to be perfect when the bar was just unrealistic. And just remembering the nine, 10 hours a day of rehearsing that I did. And yeah, my body was a lot younger then. I was, I think, probably 36. I mean, I did not know what I had signed up for. And I found myself just the perfectionist in me, the Aries in me, wanting to do something with all that I have. That's how I kind of live my life. If I'm going to do something, I want to do it right. I want to do

7:27 it to the best of my ability. So I wound up in those off-camera rehearsals. for additional five hours a day, totaling like nine to 10 hours of rehearsing a day, especially as the clock got closer to that moment when I knew I had no option than to go on live television doing this dance, something that I had no idea how to do. And it was a real struggle for me to open up. I feel like my mind, my fear enough to let my body follow suit and kind of execute to the level that I was being asked to do it. And I held back a lot.

8:06 And I see that now as I've rewatched some of my episodes. But I do see that girl, that woman emerging within the journey of how long I was there, however long that was. And I'm really proud of her now. I can remember I was so scared to go on, like the moments leading up to when you step out in front of the live audience and the cameras that are recording it live and you hear your name called by that announcer and it just will never leave my body, that fear, I think. But now I just have a kind of a different perspective on it. I can remember though having to go and get hypnotized. my ex at the time suggested hypnotherapy because I would just go home and like unload about, you know, my nerves and the

9:06 stress and I don't think I can do this and my body hurts and I want to be with the girls. I don't want to be rehearsing all day and I feel like I'm being a bad mom and, you know, all the things that went with it. And I actually went and did hypnotherapy classes, private classes in order to get me to the moment of And now performing the quick step, Jenny Garth and her partner, Derek Hough, boom, boom, boom.

9:33 And then the clicks and then you wait for your, you know, I can relive it all now, but I'm not as scared. I'm not, I don't feel as scared. And that is a good feeling. So things are a lot different for me now, but watching it made me want to do it again. You guys, I can't believe I'm saying that out loud. Did I just say that?

9:52 I don't know. There might be another dance in me at some point. I have no plans, but I kind of want to explore that. option, even if it's just in my personal life. The other day I was cleaning out my closet and I found, this is not from Dancing with the Stars, but from pre-Dancing with the Stars when I was a tap dancer. I was not a professional tap dancer. I was just teaching little girls, five-year-olds, six-year-olds, how to tap dance in their very first tap dancing classes, I found my tap shoes and I got them out.

10:24 I dusted them off and I put them right on the foyer table. Like right when I walk in the door, I see those tap shoes every time I come in the house. And it reminds me that it's never too late to go back to something that you once loved. Even if you think your body can't do it anymore. I've had I have two fake hips now. I don't know how that will work into the equation of dancing again.

10:49 No idea. But I do know that seeing those tap shoes inspires me to try to allow myself that memory, that love of dance, that feeling that came over me of freedom and of being so creative and working with a dance partner so closely and making something work that I once thought was impossible to somehow getting it ready to take out on the ballroom floor in front of the world, it really kind of made me feel like, you know what? There's no need for you to be afraid of anything. If you did that, you can do anything in life. And just like my conversation with Giada, like, look what you did. Be proud of that. Take that in.

11:41 I never really had that opportunity. After the show, my life just went into some gear that I don't even know what that was. Right after the show, I was in the best shape of my life. I was so excited to keep dancing. I didn't get to do that because my daughter Lola got really sick. That was all I could focus on for months. Then I lost my father right after that. So I went right into this like very long grieving process of losing, you know, the most important man in my life. And then right after that, I got a divorce. So there went those dreams of dancing again. And I think even maybe that even shoved down my openness to watching the show because somehow it sort of, got worked into this sad part of my

12:40 life and I didn't really want to revisit it. But I've done so much work now to kind of grow past those traumas and I feel like I'm ready now. I'm ready to start watching the show again. I am a diehard fan and I might just dance again. Who knows? I don't know. I'm excited to see what could happen. But I do know that I am also very excited to welcome some of the dancers from this season, from the next season, from the next 35 seasons on to talk about how this show impacted them, how it changed how they perceive themselves or what they think they can do in life. And really just take away those beautiful nuggets of wisdom that you do actually gain from doing something so out of the normal, so risky, so terrifying.

13:38 And so I'm going to have some people on the show. I hope you love our conversations. I definitely love my conversation with Giada and I just look forward to more conversations and more dancing. So come with me on this journey of, you know, resurrecting something that I once shut out of my life. I'm so happy.