Jenna Johnson's time on this latest season of Dancing with the Stars pales in comparison to her last. Coming into this season, the 34th, she was the reigning champ, having been awarded the Len Goodman Mirrorball Trophy alongside her partner, The Bachelor alum Joey Graziadei, last year. This year however, she along with her partner Corey Feldman, who she appears to have had a "difficult" time with, were part of the first batch of eliminations.
On the Tuesday, September 23 installment of Dancing with the Stars, Corey along with NBA alum Baron Davis, who was paired up with Britt Stewart, became the first two celebrity dancers to be sent home. The elimination came after Jenna's brother-in-law Maksim Chmerkovskiy hinted at some difficulty she'd been having with Corey.
Speaking with the Daily Mail, Maksim, who is current pro Val Chmerkovskiy's brother (Val is paired up with TikTok sensation Alix Earle), confessed: "Obviously, Jenna has a bit of an uphill climb with Corey, which is easy for everybody to say from [the outside], but I know that she's having a much more difficult time with this entire thing and to the point that it is really difficult for her."
Further showing support for his sister-in-law, he said: "You're talking about a reigning champ, so put some respect on the name, everybody," and emphasized: "Don't forget, this production is not just about you and your partner dancing, it's about this massive behemoth of everything that's happening … The amount of people that you have to deal with, the amount of interviews, and this is all between your rehearsal time and your therapy, and you are trying to lick your wounds and all that stuff."
Corey had previously sparked concern over how his time on DWTS would go over after he appeared to have missed some of the first days of rehearsals after the pairings were unveiled on Good Morning America ahead of the premiere last week. "I feel like I may have let [Jenna] down a little bit already," he told Us Weekly at the time.
"I'm sure when she opened the door [she] was like, 'Oh God, what do I have to deal with?'" he went on, though added: "I'm very grateful that I have somebody so eloquent when it comes to the dance floor, and knowing everything, the moves, the rhythms, the styles [and] the technique … She's the reigning queen, so I'm very grateful that I was lucky enough to land her as my partner."
Speaking after his elimination, he further shared: "Jenna is amazing. I really enjoyed her. I feel really terrible because she deserved better, personally speaking. She was the queen from last year. She deserves to be the champ every year in my book."
At the top of the leaderboard at the end of episode two, in a four-way tie, were Jordan Chiles and Ezra Sosa, Jen Affleck and Jan Ravnik, Robert Irwin and Witney Carson, and Whitney Leavitt and Mark Ballas.