DWTS Pro Jenna Johnson Opens Up About Emotional Mid-Show Crash on Live Tour

DWTS is chewing up its pros this spring. Jenna Johnson just posted a raw check-in from the road that pretty much sums up how brutal the back half of tour life can get.

Jenna Johnson hits a wall on tour

On Saturday, May 2, the 32-year-old pro shared a TikTok from the 2026 Dancing With the Stars Live run that shows her wiping away tears mid-meltdown. The on-screen captions explain why: 'Sick, body hurts, on my period.' She adds, 'This is what my angel of a manager had to deal with yesterday lol,' and another note pops up: 'Mid crash out to my manager.'

The clips show Jenna clearly shaken, talking to the camera in several moments, but you never actually hear her — her voice and whatever she was saying are muted. It is, frankly, a tough watch, and it landed less than two weeks before this year’s tour wraps.

Fans flooded the comments with concern and a little gallows humor. One person said, 'DWTS Tour should be name changed to Survivor. It’s [a] brutally tough looking endeavor.' Another added, 'I wish people understood how rough the tour is for you guys but I also know people appreciate and love you guys so much ❤️.'

The rough patch so far

• Val Chmerkovskiy, 40 — Jenna’s husband and fellow DWTS pro — had his own scare in March. While the tour was rolling through Illinois, he ended up in a Peoria hospital. In a March 1 Instagram update, he looked groggy in a gray sweatshirt and blue beanie, voice raspy and eyes watering, explaining he’d been battling vertigo for a couple days. He shouted out the tour’s PT, Claire, and thanked the team for rallying.
• Brandon Armstrong, 31, is out for the rest of the run. In an April 25 video, he appeared with his arm in a sling and said he’d been nursing an elbow issue that went sideways during a recent show. 'Long story short, I have a broken elbow,' he told fans, adding that doctors and the tour advised him to head home and figure out next steps.
• Through all of this, Jenna and Val — married since April 2019 — have kept performing, which makes her crash-out video feel even more like the cost of doing business on a relentless schedule.

'What’s up friends? My bad. I ended up out here in Peoria, [Illinois], but the doc was cool, shout out to Claire our [personal trainer] at our tour and everybody on tour for rallying. I’ve just been having vertigo for the past couple of days and I had it yesterday.'

Where the tour stands

This year’s DWTS Live kicked off January 22 at Akron’s Akron Civic Theatre in Ohio and — symmetry alert — it ends at that same venue on Wednesday, May 13. Jenna’s TikTok landed just shy of that finish line, which probably tells you everything about how hard they’re pushing to get there.

Bottom line: the tour looks like a blast on stage and a grind everywhere else. Here’s hoping everyone makes it to May 13 in one piece — or at least with fewer slings and hospital bracelets.