Hannah Brown Admits DWTS Rehearsals Have Been 'Really Hard' After Nailing Her First Performance
Hannah Brown is moving onwards and upwards.
After an emotional roller coaster on The Bachelorette, the former pageant queen joined the season 28 cast of Dancing with the Stars. And after weeks of grueling rehearsals, she opened Monday night’s season premiere, scoring a 20/30 for her cha-cha with Alan Bersten — the second-highest score of the night after James Van Der Beek, who earned a 21/30 from the judges.
Speaking to PEOPLE after the show, Brown, 24, admitted the past few weeks have been no easy feat.
“Rehearsals have been really hard for me,” she said. “And it’s not just trying to learn the cha-cha. It’s all the emotions that come with just being in this experience and the experience I’ve been in the past year.”
“Going from The Bachelorette to being on Dancing with the Stars, I’m having to work through some things,” she continued. “I’m so thankful that Alan has been there and has been patient with me. It has been tough. I’m really excited to see the growth that I have to just move forward doing the show.”
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Five weeks after getting engaged to Bachelorette finalist Jed Wyatt, Brown broke things off because she found out he had lied about having a girlfriend when he went on the show. And while fans hoped she might rekindle things with her runner-up Tyler Cameron, he’s been dating supermodel Gigi Hadid.
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Speaking to PEOPLE Now after the cast announcement last month, Brown said she looks forward to challenging herself on the show — and is “totally focused on Hannah and with this new chapter in my life.”
“I don’t want to really flash back to pageant days for this because I think that was what was the hardest thing for me competing — not looking to my left or my right and really just focusing on getting better and showing my best self,” she said. “I want to do that with this.”
“Of course I want to win. You don’t compete in something if that’s not your goal, you should always want to succeed,” she added. “But I just want to continue getting better and better each week and have that competition for myself, not with the other contestants.”
Dancing with the Stars airs Mondays (8 p.m. ET) on ABC.
