Brant Daugherty Had No Idea Dancing With The Stars Could Be So Demanding (New Interview, Photos)

Brant Daugherty explains to TV Guide how he was mugged last week and what it was like to continue his rehearsals for Dancing With The Stars with pro Peta Murgatroyd. It was challenging especially with a new foot injury, but, with a lot of run throughs last Sunday night, they did it. More in detail below and at the link including how he feels about the competition. You can also see Peta and Brant in some new pictures from Sunday at the Daily Mail as well as some of the other cast members.

Did it have an impact on your rehearsals ahead of this past week?
Daugherty: It was just an unnecessary distraction more than anything else. It was just one more thing to think about on top of my hurt foot. It really got my head out of the game for a couple of days. And it made me worried that we weren’t going to be able to put on a good show.

Tell us about the foot injury. What caused it?
Daugherty: We’re not really sure. It started aching maybe an hour after our performance on Week 2. So I’m not sure if we did something that night and I just didn’t notice it until later because of the adrenaline, or if it was kind of a gradual injury that finally started affecting me. … We didn’t really have time to get an MRI done. The doctor thinks that I strained or sprained a muscle or ligament in my foot. He said getting an MRI really wouldn’t change his battle plan. So, he just said to rest it as much as I could and ice it, elevate it, and try to take care of it. It’s been getting better every day.

Obviously you were able to pull through, since you got the high score for the night. How did you feel about your routine last Monday?
Daugherty: It was pretty shocking to me. I never expected to be in that position. We run it so many times and we go over notes and we watch video [to] make sure that we’re doing what we need to be doing in rehearsals. But we’re never really sure how it’s going to play out once we’re doing it live in front of a crowd. I think to our credit, every week that we’ve been doing it, we kind of really come together on performance night. We were pretty worried about our rehearsals, honestly, especially with my foot. I could barely walk Saturday morning. So we were completely resigned to the fact that our dance was going to be mediocre. And that just really stressed me out.

How did it finally come together?
Daugherty: It was just a lot of hard work. [During] rehearsal Sunday night, we were about to call it a night. Peta asked me how I felt about it. I looked her in the eyes and I said, “I don’t feel good about this at all. I don’t feel like we have it yet. I don’t feel like I’m doing what I need to be doing, I don’t feel like we’ve had enough rehearsal time because of my foot, and I’m really worried. I don’t want to be average.” So she said, “OK, what do you want to do?” And I said, “Let’s just run it and run it and run it.” And we did it probably four or five times in a row, and by the end of it I finally said, “OK, I feel confident about this now.”