“Dancing With The Stars” contestant Jen Affleck got emotional as she opened up about her friendships on “Secret Lives of Mormon Wives” and how the members of MomTok got her through her time on the ballroom floor after just giving birth.
Jen Shares Her Postpartum Journey on ‘DWTS’
Jen joined the competition more than two months after giving birth to her third child. Though she remained honest about the multitude of challenges that came with being freshly postpartum while on the show, she wouldn’t trade it “for anything.”
Jen was asked while doing an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, “are you ultimately happy you jumped at the opportunity to do the show while you were postpartum?”
“Absolutely,” she answered before going on to explain how it was “a dream” of hers to “dance in front of millions of people and be on stage.”
More than that, “it was a dream of mine to share my story, and because my story has been related to mothers, and specifically mothers dealing with postpartum and prenatal depression, even though it was challenging being on the show, I was able to reach a lot more people because of it and of bring awareness to that.”
“I think there are a lot of moments where mothers go unseen and unnoticed, and I want to bring that forward and talk about it,” Jen said. “And the fact that I was able to do that in a positive way, being freshly postpartum and dancing, something that I love to do, it made everything more impactful.”
When asked if she agreed with the fact that her being postpartum seemed to be overlooked, Jen answered, “I do think so. I don’t know if they intentionally meant to do that. There are a lot of storylines. There’s a lot of contestants, and there are a lot of things going on in each person’s life that probably even got unnoticed. But I definitely do think that it wasn’t talked about enough, and I wish I did get recognized for that.”
“But you know what? It’s OK if I didn’t get recognized from the judges, because I got recognized by millions of other moms who could see that, and that’s all that mattered to me,” Jen concluded.
Watch Jen and pro Jan Ravnik perform their premiere Salsa to “NUEVAToL” by Bad Bunny:
“Just a reminder that Jen had a baby like 3 months ago!!” someone commented under the YouTube video.
Another fan replied, “Actually it was less than 3 months! That girl is super mom!”
“And she just had a baby !!!! like wow,” another fan wrote.
“How has she just had a baby” someone else commented, including a shocked emoji. “Jen is amazing!”
‘Mormon Wives’ Helped Jen Through Her Fear
Jen discussed what her favorite part of “DWTS” was in an interview with Entertainment Tonight that she did with her “Mormon Wives” co-stars Layla Taylor and Jessi Ngatikaura.
“Honestly, the first show day,” she answered. “When you guys came out, I remember being so nervous. Like I literally had never been more scared in my whole entire life.”
“But just a few seconds before the song turned on, I looked over to you guys, and I remember you guys just cheering my name and cheering me on, and I can’t even tell you how much that meant to me in that moment,” Jen said to Layla and Jessi. “It gave me so much, like, confidence and comfort just knowing that like I had friends there like supporting me and rooting for me.”
Her equally emotional co-stars reached for Jen with smiles on their face. They exclaimed, “we love you!”
“And you killed it,” Jessi added, referring to Jen’s time on “DWTS.”
“You made us so proud. Seriously,” Layla agreed.
