The Bachelor's Joey Graziadei Had One Important Request Before Joining 'Dancing with the Stars'
Joey Graziadei is opening up about his decision to join Dancing with the Stars.
The 29-year-old The Bachelor star is currently competing on season 33 of the hit ABC dancing competition series with partner Jenna Johnson.
In a new interview, Joey revealed the one important request that he had before signing on to do the show.
Keep reading to find out more…While appearing on the Almost Famous podcast, Joey said that his relationship fiancée Kelsey Anderson took priority when he decided to do DWTS.
“It was something I thought about coming in,” Joey said as he admitted he was worried that the relationship with whomever he was partnered with 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,” Joey continued. “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.”
He then noted that 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 ended up getting partnered with Jenna, 30, who is married to fellow DWTS pro dancer Val Chmerkovskiy and shares 20-month-old son Rome.
“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.”
Jenna then admitted that she felt “disappointment” when the comments were flooded with accusations that she and Joey were getting too cozy.
Kelsey, 26, was also taken aback when people insinuated that something was going on between Joey and 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 recent TikTok. “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.”
She the 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.”
Find out why Joey got Botox in his armpits before his DWTS debut.
New episodes of Dancing with the Stars air live at 8pm ET on ABC.