Joan Vassos, Joey Graziade and Kelsey Anderson Disney/Brian Bowen Smith/Axelle/Bauer-Griffin/FilmMagic
As Kelsey Anderson received an onslaught of comments about fiancé Joey Graziadei’s connection with Dancing With the Stars partner Jenna Johnson, fellow franchise star Joan Vassos is making sure the couple ignore the criticism.
“Don’t even listen to those people and let them doubt your love and question yours and Joey’s commitment to each other,” Joan, 61, wrote via Instagram comment on Saturday, September 21. “This is a show and you are real life. Enjoy this crazy ride with him and only feel the joy!”
Several hours earlier, Kelsey, 26, had reposted a recent TikTok video onto her page. In the video, Kelsey made it clear that she was “tired” of people questioning Joey’s dance partnership.
“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 quipped in her video. “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.”
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She continued, “Let’s do a little recap here. Do y’all remember how Joey and I met? We met on The Bachelor. He was dating 31 other women while he was dating me and I won the Super Bowl ring. I have to have a certain level of security to go through all that. Joey and I [are] still together and strong after a year of all that craziness.”
Kelsey further stressed that she and Joey, 28, are “all good in the hood.”
Jenna Johnson and Joey Graziadei Disney/Andrew Eccles
“If I can survive [The Bachelor], I can survive watching him dance with a married woman with a cute little baby boy,” Kelsey added. “Crushing it. I am very proud of Joey, I think that everyone should be. He is killing it. I don’t know if y’all saw those hips on Tuesday but you’ll see them again this next Tuesday, and remember to vote for Joey.”
Jenna, 30, is married to DWTS pro Val Chmerkovskiy, with whom she shares 20-month-old son Rome. She was paired up with Joey for DWTS season 33.
Jenna and Joey scored a 21 out of 30 for their country-inspired cha-cha to Tyler Hubbard’s “Dancin’ in the Country” during the Tuesday, September 17, premiere. At one point in the routine, Joey even ripped his shirt open to bare his abs.
“This is Dancing with the Stars. It’s over the top, he’s wearing rhinestones, like, we need to just play to our audience, and they love that,” Jenna exclusively told Us Weekly. “It was really funny. I’ll never forget, like, talking about it for the first time and [Joey was] like, ‘What am I going to do?’ But, you nailed it.”
Joey, however, initially “was scared” to show off his abs on live TV.
“I’ve been doing nothing but push-ups these last two weeks,” he joked to Us. “I’m like, ‘I need to look better, I haven’t worked out for, like, three months since I left The Bachelor.’ So, scary to do, but [I] trusted [Jenna] and she knows how to make an amazing routine. So whatever she said I was doing, I said, ‘I’ll do it.’”
Kelsey, who moved from New Orleans to Los Angeles with Joey for his DWTS stint, cheered the pairing on from the crowd. She sat beside her dad, Mark Anderson, who is a contestant on Joan’s season of The Golden Bachelorette.
Dancing With the Stars airs simultaneously on ABC and Disney+ Tuesdays at 8 p.m. ET, and The Golden Bachelorette debuts new episodes Wednesdays on ABC at 8 p.m. ET.
