Dancing with the Stars got Season 32 off to an exciting start in the 2023 TV schedule with its return to ABC after spending a season just streaming on Disney+. The lineup of celebrity dancers took the stage in the premiere to tango, cha cha, salsa, and jive their way into the hearts of viewers… and ideally, voters! Grammy-winning singer Jason Mraz teamed up with returning pro dancer Daniella Karagach to compete for the Len Goodman Mirrorball Trophy, and he spoke with CinemaBlend about his surprising vertebra reveal as well as how Karagach is getting tougher on him.
Jason Mraz and Daniella Karagach earned the highest score of the night so far when the took the floor in the Season 32 premiere, and ultimately were tied for second at the end of the night. They danced a cha cha to his hit song, “I Feel Like Dancing,” and the singer dropped a reveal when speaking to host Julianne Hough while catching his breath. According to Mraz in the episode, he has an “extra vertebra,” which makes him “more reptilian.” When we spoke ahead of Week 2’s Latin Night, he explained what wasn’t quite clear from his reveal in the episode that aired on ABC and streamed for Disney+ subscribers:
Oh my gosh, I can’t believe that! I just said that as an excuse one day when we were rehearsing because [Daniella] wanted my hips to be closer to my shoulder. She’s like, ‘I really want to see your hips move, so I want you to bring it high up and touch your shoulder with your hip.’ And I thought, ‘Okay, first of all, that’s impossible.’ And I remembered that a chiropractor x-rayed me once and said, ‘Hey, you have an extra vertebra! Some people do. It’s rare, but some people do.’
Jason Mraz spoke in the premiere about being nervous that he’d look ridiculous after avoiding dance for so much of his life, but I think it’s safe to say that just about everybody was impressed by his cha cha to “I Feel Like Dancing.” All the same, Daniella Karagach’s instructions do sound pretty difficult for somebody who’s not a pro! The singer continued about the reveal of his extra vertebra:
And so I use that as an excuse on why I could not do what she wanted me to do, and I think that was misinterpreted by the team and Julianne when they asked me if I had an advantage because of that. And I thought, ‘No, there’s no advantage there, but it is a weird thing.’ In fact, it probably makes it even so that it takes longer for my brain to tell my hips what to do, because of the longer nerve path to get there.
Mraz may have had an edge in the premiere for getting to dance to his own song, but having the extra vertebra did not actually contribute to his score of 21 with Daniella Karagach. They tied with memorable Vanderpump Rules star Ariana Madix and partner Pasha Pashkov (who is actually married to Karagach). Both pairs were in second behind former Bachelorette Charity Lawson, who scored 22 with Artem Chigvintsev. Comedian and actor Matt Walsh was the first celebrity eliminated after Week 1.
Week 2 will change up the competition for the thirteen remaining couples, as they dance to songs by Latin artists. For Jason Mraz, that means a rumba to “Quizás, Quizás, Quizás” by Andrea Bocelli featuring Jennifer Lopez. When I asked the Grammy winner about working with Karagach in Week 2 after their great score in Week 1, he shared that it’s “great,” but not easy. He explained:
I will say, though, that she came in hard on the first rehearsal after Week 1 after our results, because she said, ‘Alright, now that I know what you’re capable of, we’re going to turn this up.’ Which was not what I was hoping to hear. I was hoping we just kind of found our comfort zone and we were gonna glide. But no, she’s definitely making it harder for me because she knows I’m capable, or at least I’m going to try to do what she says, and she’s an amazing teacher. An amazing teacher, a great choreographer. She’s so patient. She works so hard and she’s a new mom, so I can’t believe she’s doing her whole life, the schedule that the pros require. And she’s taking many hours of every day to teach an amateur like myself. She is definitely a superwoman.
Jason Mraz apparently set the bar too high for himself for Daniella Karagach to let him coast for the rest of Season 32! She certainly knows what it takes to win, as she helped Iman Shumpert win the mirrorball trophy in Season 30. Whether or not the same will happen for Mraz remains to be seen, but he only had good things to say about how hard she works. He also only had good things to say about dancing to “Quizás, Quizás, Quizás” for Latin Night, sharing:
It’s a beautiful love song. Kind of about a bit of a chase or a bit about asking someone to stop overthinking it. And when you’re ready, I’m here. Like, perhaps we will meet one day eye to eye. It’s this nice love song with a lot of tension in it, and I can relate. I feel like I’ve written a lot of love songs through the years and I’ve been that character in music before. So this song itself was really easy to emote to. It’s the rhythm of the rumba that is new for me, but the song is getting me through it because I absolutely love the song.
Anybody who has heard Mraz’s “I’m Yours” – which is a whole lot of people – knows that he knows his way around a love song, so it should be fun to see his take on “Quizás, Quizás, Quizás” after Daniella Karagach put him to work even harder. Check out the performance that he’ll have to try to top in Week 2:
If you missed the Season 32 premiere of Dancing with the Stars, you can rewatch it now streaming via Disney+ or with a Hulu subscription. Be sure to tune in to ABC (or stream on Disney+) on Tuesday, October 3 at 8 p.m. ET for the Latin Night episode of Dancing with the Stars, to see which celebrities will make it to Week 3!