Melissa Rycroft revealed she suffered a herniated disk when rehearsing for this week's two Dancing with the Stars: All-Stars performance shows but it won't stop her from competing.
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The reality TV star was released from the hospital late Sunday night after being taken from CBS Studios via ambulance earlier that day due to neck and head injuries. Rycroft elaborated on those injuries during last night's live Dancing with the Stars: All-Stars broadcast before taking the stage with her group for their freestyle "Team Dance."
"Yesterday in rehearsal, Melissa, as you saw, was injured. What was the injury specifically?" Dancing with the Stars host Tom Bergeron asked Rycroft.
"It was diagnosed as a herniated disk in my upper neck... I officially got cleared [to dance], so we're going to give it a go," Rycroft revealed, joking afterwards that she was "on a lot of medication."
Rehearsal footage of Rycroft's group doing camera blocking for their "Team Dance" on Sunday showed the reality TV star practicing a minor stunt with professional partner Tony Dovolani in which he pulled her through his legs and she quickly turned her whole body around in attempt to get back up on her feet.
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"We were only in like three quarters or half way through the routine. I didn't really see it. I think [Karina Smirnoff] and I were still dancing. We just heard Melissa kind of scream out," fellow "Team Dance" contestant Apolo Anton Ohno told the cameras following the incident.
"Her sneakers kind of got stuck and her body kind of bowed, and she had a whiplash where her entire neck kind of cracked," Dovolani added.
"[They] called in the EMT and it gave us all a really big scare," Rycroft explained of her slipped or ruptured disk.
However, Rycroft's "Team Dance" was a success, as her group received an overall score of 29.5 out of 30 possible points from Dancing with the Stars judges Len Goodman, Carrie Ann Inaba and Bruno Tonioli. After the performance, the show's co-host Brooke Burke-Charvet asked the reality TV star how she was feeling.
"It's there. It's really numb right now, but..." Rycroft replied.
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"You got the tango tomorrow. Are you going to be okay?" Burke-Charvet questioned, referring to Tuesday night's additional one-hour performance show in which she is set to dance her individual "guilty pleasure" routine with Dovolani.
"Yeah, we'll be fine," Rycroft said with a worried smirk.
About The Author: Elizabeth Kwiatkowski