Jen Affleck is competing on ‘Dancing With the Stars’ simply 2 months postpartum. She says the selection was a no brainer.

Jen Affleck is not new to sharing her ups and downs on social media, however being flipped and spun by the air is a brand new form of content material for the influencer and mother of three. As she spends between 5 and eight hours in a studio every single day getting ready to compete on Dancing With the Stars, she’s nonetheless bringing her children alongside for the journey. There’s one in a stroller behind her within the background of a latest viral submit.

Everybody needs to know the way she’s coaching for the ultra-athletic competitors present Dancing With the Stars simply weeks after giving start in July. Fact is, she doesn’t actually know if she will be able to do it or how profitable she’ll be. She simply has to attempt.

“With my second child, I ran the New York Metropolis Marathon three months postpartum,” she tells Yahoo casually. “So I believed, ‘You recognize what? If I can do this, I believe I can do that!'”

The 26-year-old first broke out as an influencer on TikTok, recognized for sharing movies of herself dancing on her kitchen counter tops. She then turned a part of MomTok, a gaggle of younger Mormon mothers from Utah who discovered viral fame on-line and now star in Hulu’s actuality present The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives.

Jen’s trajectory on the present has not been straightforward. The primary season featured an explosive combat together with her husband, Zac Affleck. Within the second season, they reunite after being separated, which causes stress and disappointment in her buddy group. When she discovered she was pregnant together with her third baby, the difficulties in her marriage and the drama inside MomTok compounded her prenatal melancholy. She stopped filming six episodes into the season to hunt psychological well being therapy.

It might have been straightforward for Jen to depart the limelight totally and revert to a life offscreen, however she’s probably not within the enterprise of taking it straightforward.

“I used to be a bit traumatized after Season 2, to be trustworthy. The better factor would have been to simply depart [the show] and to not come again, however I positively knew that if I did not come again, I might have regretted it for the remainder of my life,” she says.

It was scary for her to return to Mormon Wives, however happening Dancing With the Stars, no matter what different folks’s expectations have been for her physique, was a no brainer. She’s watched the present so long as she will be able to bear in mind. Her strikes could be TikTok-famous, however she doesn’t have any formal coaching.

“I’ve no dancing expertise in addition to being Latina and simply rising up dancing … at events,” Jen says. “That’s actually the one expertise I’ve. That and dancing on counter tops.”

After only a week of ballroom observe, she was coated in bruises and blisters, shocked by how demanding the game was on her physique. She says she felt like an outdated girl. Lots of people have instructed her that she shouldn’t do the present and that she ought to chill out as an alternative. However she is aware of what she wants.

“Truthfully, it’s doing what I really like that helps me get out of the rut … that helps me really feel extra impressed in life,” she says. “Dancing With the Stars is filling my cup, and since I’m filling my cup, I’m in a position to give extra to my children, my household and the world.”

‘I am changing into a greater model of myself’

Looking for a strategy to preserve melancholy at bay is what made Jen well-known within the first place. She says she was caught in her home as a stay-at-home mother when she began sharing movies of herself dancing to deal with postpartum and have enjoyable together with her children. Different younger moms have re-created her posts, which she loves. From there, her influencer profession took off.

The transition from TikTok superstar to actuality TV superstar was an enormous step for her.

“With social media, you’re in a position to edit your self in the best way that you simply need to. With actuality TV, you must let that go,” she says. “It’s scary and it takes a number of vulnerability.”

That vulnerability has been good for her private progress.

“I really feel like my life on the whole hasn’t even actually modified,” she says. What actually has modified is extra consciousness to myself, my relationship, and thru that, I really feel like I am changing into a greater model of myself.”

Jen admits she’s had one “loopy second” that made her notice that she’s an precise, recognizable star, although: She met Ben Affleck and his daughter, and his daughter was an enormous fan. That’s all she may say concerning the encounter — we’ll discover out when Secret Lives of Mormon Wives Season 3 is out on Nov. 13.

It was a momentous interplay for her. Within the present’s first season, she claimed that her husband Zac was one of many well-known actor’s cousins, however within the months that adopted, viewers questioned if that was true. It was not, which led the opposite members of MomTok to poke enjoyable at her about it, with some questioning how trustworthy an individual she could possibly be if she lied about one thing like this.

It wasn’t a deceive Jen, although — only a misunderstanding. She obtained into an onscreen combat with Zac about it, and he accused her of taking a household joke too critically.

“You are not gonna make me really feel silly when that is all I have been instructed from your loved ones,” she says on the present.

It appears Jen is ready for a redemption arc this season. That’s not essentially her purpose, although. She’s centered on letting her children know “that for those who actually need one thing and you’ve got a dream, something’s doable … I’ve been in a position to do it with three infants.”

“I believe that’s why I’m doing all the things that I’m doing — so I can present them that I did the scary factor,” she continues. “It’s daunting … being in a spot the place folks can decide you. However I noticed the important thing to success is having the ability to cringe at your self, and likewise simply being OK with being uncomfortable.”

One other member of the Secret Lives of Mormon Wives solid, Whitney Leavitt, can be a part of this season of Dancing With the Stars.

Jen says it’s good to have somebody to share the expertise with who’s additionally a mother of three. She couldn’t say a lot else — it’s positive to be a plot level on each of their shared actuality TV exhibits — however they’ve been playfully stirring up the competitors between them by TikToks.

‘We’re staying humble’

When the TV and cellphone cameras aren’t rolling, life is fairly regular for Jen. She nonetheless goes to the grocery retailer with out folks bombarding her for selfies. She simply flew top quality for the primary time on her strategy to New York to advertise Dancing With the Stars, and known as Zac from the Delta Sky Membership, harassed about whether or not or not she belonged there.

“I didn’t develop up with some huge cash … that is nonetheless bizarre for me,” she says. “I’m like, ‘Do I deserve this?’”

Her humility shines by a lot of our dialog. She’s not simply coy about her sudden fame — she’s humble about her dancing prowess, her athleticism and her persistence.

“They are saying keep humble or be humbled. And I am like, ‘We’re staying humble!’” she jokes.

She is wanting ahead to being onstage. It’s vindication for the time in ninth grade when she didn’t make the dance workforce. Rightfully so, she admits. She didn’t have the expertise that different dancers did.

Her Dancing With the Stars accomplice, Jan Ravnik, is technically new to the present too — however like Jen, he’s a little bit of a social media superstar. He was one in every of Taylor Swift’s dancers on the Eras Tour. No matter how they fare within the competitors, she’ll formally have the ability to say she has formal coaching.

Issues haven’t been straightforward for Jen, however she’s at all times been open about that. Her relentless pursuit of her desires regardless of her circumstances is one thing to be admired, whether or not she’s dancing on her desk to make her children snigger or competing for the coveted Mirrorball Trophy on community TV.