Giada De Laurentiis Shares Her ‘Purple’ Bruised Toe After “Dancing with the Stars” Rehearsal

Chiara KimMon, September 7, 2026 at 6:59 PM UTC

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Giada De Laurentiis revealed she hurt her toe while practicing for ‘Dancing with the Stars’Credit: Giada DeLaurentiis/Instagram; Disney/Andrew Eccles -

Giada De Laurentiis shared that she hurt her toe during rehearsals for Dancing with the Stars but remains positive

The celebrity chef has said that the show has been physically and mentally challenging

De Laurentiis credits her daughter Jade, 18, for inspiring her to join the competition

Giada De Laurentiis is putting her all into Dancing with the Starsrehearsals — even when it hurts.

The former Food Network chef, 56, who was cast on season 35 of the ballroom dance competition show, revealed that she “busted” her toe in rehearsal in an Instagram post.

“So I had a great day at rehearsals today, but sadly, I busted my toe,” De Laurentiis says in her video before frowning. “Take a look.”

She then shows her bruised middle toe, saying, “you can see, it’s quite purple, and it wraps all the way around.”

“I’m for sure gonna lose my toe nail I think,” she says.

“Anyway, I don’t know. It hurts,” she adds. “But, we’ll figure it out tomorrow. Part of the game.”

“You know what they say… no pain, no gain. 👠🪩,” the celebrity chef wrote in the caption of her post.

The Giadzy founder was revealed as one of the 16 season 35 cast members on Wednesday, Sept. 2.

She told PEOPLE the most surprising aspect of the show so far has been “finding muscles I didn’t know I had.”

“I mean, who knew that my quad muscles were so weak?” she said. “After the first day of rehearsal, the security guard who walked me to my car was like, ‘Do you want to hold onto me going down the stairs? You look like you might fall over.’ I said, ‘I didn’t realize how much pain I’m in.’”

She added that her friends who have done the show have told her that “it is an unbelievable experience, but it’s a lot on your body, so be prepared.”

She said her friend Maria Menounos, who competed on season 14, told her to practice her routines on her own in addition to scheduled rehearsals.

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De Laurentiis’ “busted” toeCredit: Giada DeLaurentiis/Instagram

“What I didn’t realize beside the body is the mind, like how tired mentally I would be from learning something so foreign that, literally, I would go home and just want to veg out,” De Laurentiis admitted. “It was kind of crazy, and it’s so out of who I am. I’m always go, go, go no matter what. But with this, it’s like it just made my brain like mush. I couldn’t think straight.”

The chef also shared in a Good Morning America segment on the cast announcement that dancing is “a lot rougher than I thought it would be! I figured my grandmother was a dancer, and I thought maybe I got some of those genes. Definitely not.”

De Laurentiis and her partner, Alan Bersten, shared an Instagram Reel joking about her age, as Bersten showed Giada a TikTok video in which they’re “finally on the top.”

De Laurentiis and her ‘Dancing with the Stars’ partner, Alan BerstenCredit: Andrew Eccles/Disney

He shows her an age breakdown of the cast, which places De Laurentiis at the top.

“It’s an age breakdown, I’m the eldest,” De Laurentiis says, playfully elbowing Bersten.

“Those damn pyramids!! Doesn’t matter, can’t wait to show you how hard we’re working!!” the caption of the video says.

De Laurentiis told PEOPLE her daughter Jade, 18, inspired her to finally join the competition.

“I’ve been asked several times over the years, and I think that this time I said yes because my daughter basically forced me to say yes,” she said. “And also because I just dropped her off at college, and I think that she felt and I felt that I needed to push myself out of my comfort zone and do something totally different.”

She said that while her daughter “is going on a new journey, it’s time for mom to also do the same.”

The mother recently moved her daughter into her dorm room at New York University, sharing a sendoff post on Instagram on Aug. 28.

“It takes a village.. my heart❤️,” she captioned her post, which showed Jade smiling on her dorm bed with Radiohead’s In Rainbows record.

When asked whether Jade will come to cheer on the celebrity chef during her Dancing with the Stars run, De Laurentiis told PEOPLE, “I hope so if I last. She goes to school in New York, so I’m hoping that if I can hang in there a few weeks, she’ll come visit me.”

on People

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Source: “AOL Entertainment”