Exclusive

Dancing With the Stars Backstage Scoop: Karina Smirnoff Admits She Was "Nervous" After Suffering Injury

Exclusive! Partner Jacoby Jones refused to do their injury-causing lift on the ABC competition hit on Monday night, the pro dancer reveals to E! News

By Tierney Bricker May 14, 2013 4:33 AMTags
DWTS, Jacoby Jones, Karina SmirnoffABC

"It's like a sport. When you get hurt, you either power through or you have to stop and rest and obviously we don't have time to stop," Mark Ballas says.

Dancing With the Stars' pros are warriors, y'all, which they definitely proved on Monday night's show as Karina Smirnoff performed just a day after being hospitalized for neck and jaw injuries that she sustained while rehearsing a lift with partner Jacoby Jones. And she wasn't the only pro dancing through the pain!

We chatted backstage after the show with Karina and fellow injured pro Mark, who reveals to us that he "rebroke his toe," to find out how they're feeling. Plus, Karina reveals that Jacoby refused to try their risky lift again!

"It makes you a lot more nervous and your footing is not as solid," Karina says of the psychological impact of her injury. "You start to question what you're doing right, what you're doing wrong. When you're doing a lift like that, you can't hesitate, you just got to go for it."

It turns out that the pair didn't end up doing the lift that caused Karina's injury tonight. But, she reveals, "I wanted to do it...but the man in charge here said, 'Absolutely not.''' Jacoby concurs: "We weren't doing that move. No way possible."

Still, Karina tells us she's feeling "much better." And we're sure that perfect score the couple scored tonight definitely had a healing effect!

As for Karina's injury, fellow competitor Aly Raisman was there when she got hurt and recalls, "It was awful. At first, she thought her jaw was dislocated, so poor Karina, she was just sitting there." Mark adds, "It was gnarly."

And aside from rebreaking his toe (Ouch!), Mark reveals to us he's dealing with another injury as well. "I'm dealing with the most horrendous back injury right now. It's horrendous," he spills. "It happened to me a few weeks ago and they gave me some stuff to get through it. It got better for a week."

Adds Aly, "He was dying this morning."

—Reporting by Will Marfuggi