'Dancing with the Stars' champion Amber Riley: It was hard and uncomfortable, but I pulled it out in the end!

Dancing with the Stars' seventeenth-season champion Amber Riley admits she was uncomfortable throughout the entire season but was happy to come through in the end.


"Man, it was hard. It was hard," the Glee star said during a Wednesday morning appearance on Good Morning America with pro partner Derek Hough, pro Cheryl Burke, and fellow finalists Corbin Bleu and Jack Osbourne.

"It was something I had never done before and I've put myself in the position to do something new and hard. Every single -- every single -- week I was learning something I didn't know. It was a very uncomfortable position to be in, but I just pulled it out!"

Riley said it was an honor to be crowned the first African-American winner of the reality dancing competition.

"Yeah, I didn't know!... It meant a lot to me," the singer and actress noted.


Riley struggled with a painful knee injury throughout the last few weeks of the competition, and apparently she's doing better now.

"[My knees] are just really bruised. The top of my tibia is bruised, so that's where the pain comes in, and there's a little fluid in my knees. But that will all be fixed with rest! And a little bit of ice," Riley said.

However, if Riley's injury didn't improve, Hough was ready to make due. The five-time Dancing with the Stars champion told GMA he was initially considering choreographing their entire freestyle routine on wheels.

Hough also said that he'd run into Glee cast members occasionally in Los Angeles and they'd rave to him about the progress Riley had been making on the show.

"[They'd say], 'I can't believe what she's doing! We never thought she'd be this good, and she's just killing it!' So it was cool to hear that," Hough added.


Runner-up Bleu's partner Karina Smirnoff was not present for the GMA appearance because of "a family emergency."

But when reflecting on his own show experience, Bleu explained, "I grew up performing and I grew up entertaining. I've made a career out of it, and to be able to perform on this caliber of a stage and to have it so much at your fingertips every single week, that really was the highlight for this entire experience for me. It really was."

"I've always been a ham," the Disney Channel star joked. "Always, since Day 1."

As for Osbourne, who finished in third place, he's probably looking forward to resting. The former The Osbournes and Armed & Famous star suffers from Multiple Sclerosis and battled the disease's side effects all season.

"I feel good. I'm a little tired, but I'm good. I'm good. I'm hanging in there," Osbourne said.


Osbourne also joked that if he wasn't tired after the whole Dancing with the Stars journey, he'd "be Derek."

Burke then said it was a privilege being paired up with Osbourne.

"[Jack] definitely brought out a different side of me," Burke explained. "Out of 16 seasons, I think it's the first time I've ever cried with my partner. Three times we cried... I'm just so proud of Jack. I can't believe the struggle that he's been through, and being able to overcome that, it's so inspiring... He's come such a long way."






About The Author: Elizabeth Kwiatkowski