Jenna Dewan Sent Home on Dancing With the Stars Grammy Night

Well, that stings. Jenna Dewan is out of Dancing With the Stars — sent home at the end of week nine, on Grammy Night, of all nights. Tuesday, November 10. Tenth celebrity gone from season 35. And honestly? A lot of people watching at home probably did a double take when Alfonso Ribeiro said her name.

Because here’s the thing. Dewan isn’t some random celebrity who wandered into the ballroom and hoped for the best. She’s a dancer. A real one. The kind who spent years in the trenches before the cameras ever cared about her name. So getting bounced in week nine — on a night she danced well, by the way — feels less like a fair result and more like the show doing what the show does. Which is: break your heart a little, once a week, in front of millions of people.

Her partner, Val Chmerkovskiy, went home with her. And if you watched their faces when the result came in, you saw two people who knew exactly how this game works and still couldn’t quite believe it.

Grammy Night Was a Lot — Maybe Too Much of a Lot

Let’s set the scene. Week nine’s theme was “Grammy Night,” so every couple danced to songs connected to Grammy winners and nominees, and the producers clearly decided that regular musical guests weren’t enough. They brought in Brandy and Monica. Brandy. And. Monica. On a Tuesday night. In a ballroom. Plus Maren Morris and Sheryl Crow for good measure.

It was, by any normal standard, a stacked show. The kind of lineup where you’d forgive the audience for forgetting it was a competition at all and just enjoying the concert. All seven remaining couples performed, the energy in the room was huge, and then — right on cue — the hosts had to ruin the mood.

Alfonso Ribeiro and Julianne Hough did the honors, announcing who was safe and moving on to week ten. The semi-finals. One step from the end. There’s only a couple of weeks left before somebody lifts the Len Goodman Mirrorball Trophy, and by this point in the season every score and every vote counts double. Nobody gets a free pass anymore. Not even a trained dancer with a decade of history on this show.

So What Actually Went Wrong?

Short answer: nothing, really. And that’s the annoying part.

Dewan didn’t have a bad night. She didn’t stumble, didn’t forget the choreography, didn’t look lost. She did what she’s done all season — danced clean, danced confident, looked like someone who belongs on that floor. The judges had good things to say. The crowd was into it. On paper, she should’ve been fine.

But Dancing With the Stars was never just about who’s the best dancer, and anyone who tells you otherwise hasn’t been watching long enough. It’s scores plus votes, and the votes don’t care about your résumé. In a week this stacked, with this many strong couples, somebody good has to go home. This week, the math picked Jenna.

That’s the brutal little secret of this show. You can be great and still lose. You can do everything right and still end up standing there under the lights, smiling through it, while the confetti that isn’t for you stays in the rafters.

Dewan took it the way you’d expect — gracefully, warmly, like a pro. Nineteen years in the spotlight teaches you how to exit a stage, even when you’d rather stay on it.

The Reunion That Made This Season Worth Watching

What made Dewan’s run this season feel different from the usual celebrity stint is that she’d done this before. Not just the show — this exact partnership. She competed on season 23, back in the fall of 2016, with Val Chmerkovskiy right beside her. They were good then, too. Really good. They danced all the way to the finale and finished third, behind winner Laurie Hernandez and runner-up James Hinchcliffe.

So when she came back ten years later, same partner, it felt like something the show doesn’t get very often: a genuine full-circle moment. Not a gimmick. Not a stunt casting. Just two people who trust each other, who’ve been through this pressure cooker together before, picking up where they left off.

The fans noticed. You could feel it in the way the audience reacted to them week after week — this wasn’t just another couple, it was a reunion, and reunions are catnip for a show like this.

Which is exactly why week nine hurt. Ten years ago she made the finale. This time she didn’t even make the semis. The ballroom giveth, and the ballroom taketh away, and it doesn’t apologize either way.

She Was a Dancer Before She Was Anything Else

People forget this about Jenna Dewan, or maybe they never knew it in the first place. Before the movie roles, before the TV shows, before the magazine covers, she was a working dancer. Not a hobbyist — a professional. She danced backup for some of the biggest pop acts around in the early 2000s, including Janet Jackson. If you’ve ever wondered what a proper dance education looks like, that’s it right there: years on tour, learning routines in hours, hitting marks in arenas full of screaming fans.

Then Step Up happened in 2006, and everything changed overnight. She played Nora Clark, the ballet-trained dancer who falls for a street dancer played by Channing Tatum, and suddenly she wasn’t just a dancer anymore — she was a movie star. The film turned into a franchise, a whole cultural moment, and Dewan and Tatum became one of those couples the tabloids couldn’t get enough of. They married in 2009. They split in 2018, finalized the divorce the next year, and share a daughter, Everly.

But here’s what I like about Dewan’s career: she never just sat on the Step Up thing. She kept moving. Horror (American Horror Story: Asylum). Superheroes (Lucy Lane on Supergirl). Medical drama (The Resident). Hosting — Flirty Dancing, The Real Dirty Dancing — which, let’s be honest, was basically the universe telling her to get back to what she’s best at.

These days most people know her as Bailey Nune on The Rookie, where she’s become part of the furniture in the best way. And off camera, life’s full: she’s engaged to actor and singer Steve Kazee, and they’ve got two little ones, Callum and Rhiannon, running around. Try fitting a ten-week live dance competition around that schedule. Seriously. Try it.

Six Couples Left, and Now It’s Anyone’s Game

With Dewan gone, six couples head into the semi-finals in week ten, and if you think you know who’s winning this thing, I’d love to see your bracket, because right now it genuinely feels open. The semis are where seasons get decided — the routines get tougher, the themes get more personal, the judges get pickier, and there’s nowhere left to hide. Whoever walks away with the Mirrorball in a couple of weeks is going to have earned every bit of it.

As for Dewan? Look, an elimination like this is a gut punch, but it’s not a setback. Not really. She leaves the season with something no scorecard can take away: the whole world just watched her dance, again, and remembered why she was famous in the first place. She got ten weeks with a partner she trusts, in front of an audience that clearly loved having her back.

And if you know anything about Jenna Dewan, you know this isn’t the last time she’ll be on a dance floor. It’s in her bones. It’s how she started. It’s the thing she does better than just about anyone in Hollywood. Grammy Night might’ve been her last dance this season — but the music? The music’s not done with her yet. Not even close.

Source: Just Jared