Being Kendra_ Cribs, Cocktails, and Getting My Sexy Back - Kendra Wilkinson [67]
It always feels good to be wanted. While I wasn’t going into it to be a professional dancer, it was an honor to be on DWTS. You can’t get more exposure than on DWTS. I was like, “Why not? My fans will love it.” Sometimes I don’t even do it for me; sometimes I do it for the fans.
During my time on Dancing with the Stars, Hank Jr. got to spend his days with Dad, and that’s a great thing in itself. To be able to have Hank and our son spend so much time together, we are a very lucky family. Hank was being Mr. Mom while I was on DWTS. It’s so crazy how many people think that’s weird. I want you to know something: Hank had the baby every day with little or no help. I don’t know a lot of dads in Hollywood who could handle that situation all by themselves. The only time we hired a babysitter was Monday nights when I was dancing, because Hank wanted to come and watch me. The rest of the time Hank had that baby. I think it’s hard for people to accept a father now in that role. When Hank is playing football, I have the baby. When I’m doing DWTS, Hank has the baby. It’s fair, it’s fifty-fifty. That’s how we look at life; it’s yin and yang. It’s all about balance.
When I first met my dance partner, Louis Van Amstel, they told me he was the dancer who had Kelly Osbourne in one of the seasons before me, and I thought, “I like her, she’s fun, so he must be cool and willing to start with a beginner.”
I had never watched the show, so I didn’t know Louis from Maks. They said, “His name is Louis and he’s the one that’s gay.” I was so relieved, like someone had lifted a hundred thousand pounds off my back, because I worried that Hank would be jealous or uncomfortable that I was grinding with a straight guy. Five days a week grinding with Maks—I can’t imagine Hank would have been happy with that. I said, “I’m so happy I got the gay one! That’s awesome,” but Louis gave me a look when he heard that! He took it the wrong way. I was happy he was gay because I’m a target of tabloid speculation, and magazines are always trying to say I cheated or Hank cheated. So there wouldn’t be any issues there. But it started off awkward because I said that.
Louis is very serious about dancing, but I cracked jokes and fooled around on the reality part of the show during the rehearsals because that’s how I deal with being nervous in a new situation. But on the third day of rehearsals he was upset with me because I wasn’t serious.
There was a move called the ronde, where you straighten your leg and point your foot and do a rainbow-type movement, but he kept pushing me to do it higher and higher. I said, “I can’t do it. I don’t have any balance!” He said, “Just do it!” So I tried and I tried. But I just couldn’t nail it. I tried again and again, but keeping my leg that high in the air threw off my shaky balance, and each time I stumbled to the side. Finally, Louis had enough and he snapped at me! It was the third day and already he’d snapped at me for not doing it right. That shut me up and I was like, “What the hell did I sign up for? Why is this guy screaming at me?” I thought the way he yelled at me was inappropriate. And I just started to cry. But I didn’t want to be seen as the crier of the show or like I was fighting with my partner after the first week, so I turned it into something else. I blamed the crying on being uncomfortable with my body, saying, “I don’t feel like a girl!” But I really cried because he snapped at me so bad. I didn’t know how I would recover from that third day.
I cried to Hank; I cried myself to sleep. Being a mom was hard enough. Going on this show and trying to dance