Joey Graziadei is keeping his relationship with Kelsey Anderson a priority as he takes on the ballroom.
“It was something I thought about coming in,” Joey, 29, said during the Thursday, September 26, episode of the “Almost Famous” podcast of how his partnership on Dancing With the Stars would be analyzed by fans. “I wanted to be in a situation where I was comfortable that I didn’t have to worry about a lot of this noise. So, I asked when I got on the show to be paired with someone that was in a successful and healthy relationship.”
Joey recalled telling the DWTS producers, “I didn’t want there to be any chance of noise on this because I know that comes with the show and the territory sometimes.” The reality star, who got engaged to Kelsey during the season 28 Bachelor finale, noted he was in “such a great place in my life with everything that Kelsey and I have built that I didn’t want to have a distraction.”
Joey is paired with Jenna Johnson, who is married to fellow DWTS pro Val Chmerkovskiy.
“I think it’s very obvious that my relationship is known on the show. I mean, I have a child [and] my husband’s on the show as well,” Jenna, 30, explained on the podcast, noting, “I thought, you know, people would obviously know that Joey’s engaged.”
She recalled feeling “disappointment” when the dance partners got flooded with comments about being too cozy. Kelsey, 26, was also taken aback by how many people were trying to insinuate he was being too touchy with Jenna.
“So many people are like, ‘Kelsey, why is Jenna touching your man like that?’ And honestly, I don’t know, maybe because it’s her job,” Kelsey shared in a TikTok video posted on September 19. “Maybe because she’s a professional dancer and she has to touch him to dance. I don’t know, that’s my understanding of it.”
Kelsey pointed out that if she and Joey could navigate dating on reality TV — with 31 other women at the start — then she can “survive watching him dance with a married woman with a cute little baby boy.” (Jenna and Val share son Rome, 20 months.)
Jenna revealed on Thursday that Kelsey speaking out on the chatter has helped ease how many comments she and Joey receive. “Kelsey’s incredible. She’s been so supportive during this whole experience,” Jenna shared. “Obviously, my husband loves Joey and is so supportive. So I think we could have asked for better partners in this situation.”
Joey noted that he made sure that his fiancée was “comfortable with putting that into kind of the world again” and having their relationship back in the spotlight. “We’re in probably the best spot we’ve been [on the show] now with Kelsey being more vocal,” Joey explained to podcast host Ben Higgins.
Joey added that he and Jenna are now doing “everything we can to have people kind of settle down and hopefully we can just get to just enjoying and having fun and focusing on our dances each week.”
Jenna agreed, pointing out that the dancers are “very intentional with what we do,” but that doesn’t mean they are going to tone down their chemistry for the haters. “I think our main focus isn’t catered to the audience. I think it’s catered to our individual spouses or significant others,” she said. “Being just intentional [and] aware of their feelings and thoughts.”
She added, “Obviously we have a ton of fun together. We have a great time,” noting that she is always focused on making Joey the best dancer — and nailing each routine.
Dancing With the Stars airs simultaneously on ABC and Disney+ Tuesdays at 8 p.m. ET.
