Jenna Johnson On Why Relationship With Val Chmerkovskiy Has Been ‘Difficult’ Recently

Jenna Johnson and Val Chmerkovskiy are two of the most-loved professional dancers on ABC’s “Dancing With the Stars,” but the two have had a hard time keeping their romance alive during the current season of the show.

For season 30, Johnson is partnered with entertainer JoJo Siwa and Chmerkovskiy is partnered with influencer Olivia Jade. The two have been near the top of the leaderboard each week of the competition, and that means they’re likely to get pretty far in the competition.

Unfortunately for the couple, since the COVID protocols for professional dancers on “Dancing With the Stars” season 30 means that they cannot live in the same home while on the show, that means spending a lot of time apart for Johnson and Chmerkovskiy.

Johnson Says the Distance Has Been a ‘Challenge’

In some ways, Johnson says it’s difficult to balance her relationship with Chmerkovskiy with her career. She opened up to Us Weekly the week of October 8, 2021, about what this season has meant for her relationship with her husband.

“It was a challenge for us to find a good balance of work life and home life because we were constantly talking about work, and this was a few years ago and so we really pushed ourselves to finish work at the door, come home and just be humans, just be a married couple,” Johnson told the outlet. “Obviously, [this] season it has been a little easier to do that because we can’t live together because of COVID.”

She shared that the two have been sending each other sneak peek videos and helping each other out virtually.

When it comes to what’s hard about the current situation, however, Johnson shared it’s that she has not been able to touch her husband.

“My love language is physical touch, so I just want to be full-on kissing him. Like, yeah, that’s just me,” she told the outlet. “It’s been a little bit difficult, but we both have the same end goal and we know how much this means to each other. So, COVID is a real thing, and we want to support one another through the season.”

They’ll also be skipping the 2022 “Dancing With the Stars” tour in order to focus on their relationship.

The Couple Only Sees Each Other on Show Days

Some fans have been confused by the protocols during season 30 of “Dancing With the Stars.” Since Cody Rigsby and Cheryl Burke both tested positive for COVID-19 but other partners seemed to be getting together outside of the pod system, some fans think it was silly to force the married professional dancers to live apart for the season.

Married couples on the show currently are Johnson and Chmerkovskiy, as well as Emma Slater and Sasha Farber and  Daniella Karagach and Pasha Pashkov are all living separately from one another. Luckily for Karagach, Pashkov was sent home during the third week of competition, meaning that they are once again able to live together.

While that’s happening, however, the celebrities are uploading Instagram photos and videos of them hanging out with the other contestants, one Reddit thread pointed out.

“Thought dance couples were supposed to be in a bubble? Isn’t that the point of not allowing married pros to see each other?” the title of the thread reads.

The photo with the post shows Melora Hardin hanging around with Matt James and Lindsay Arnold during the Disney shoot.

One person replied, “Yeah I really don’t understand keeping married couples apart if celebs and pros are gonna act like this..if I was Sasha/Emma, Val/Jenna or Daniella/Pasha and saw this I would be low-key annoyed.”

“Dancing With the Stars” airs on Mondays at 8 p.m. Eastern time on ABC.

READ NEXT: Cody Rigsby & Cheryl Burke ‘Hurt’ by Low ‘Dancing With the Stars’ Scores