Jenna Johnson knows exactly why she’d pick Robert Irwin “in a heartbeat” to be her partner on Dancing With the Stars.
The professional dancer, 31, opened up about the subject while chatting exclusively with Parade at the 32nd annual Race to Erase MS Gala at the Fairmont Century Plaza in Los Angeles on Friday, May 16. Irwin, 21, was recently announced as the first celebrity to compete on Season 34 of the long-running competition series.
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“I literally couldn’t think of a better person to be on the show. I just think he is the perfect candidate to have an amazing journey on Dancing with the Stars,” Johnson says of Irwin Jr. “We all fell in love with [his sister] Bindi [Irwin]. I think he’s obviously his own person, his own story, but they just come from the best set of family values and that’s just so transparent on the show, so I think that he’s going to be an incredible force on Dancing with the Stars.”
Johnson and husband Val Chmerkovskiy were just a few of the celebs at Friday’s star-studded gala, which was hosted by multiple sclerosis (MS) advocate and Center Without Walls founder Nancy Davis. The event raised over $1.5 million to benefit the Race to Erase MS and its Center Without Walls program to help fund treatments and find a cure for MS.
Hosted by Caroline Rhea, the gala also featured performances by Robin Thicke, A Great Big World and Siedah Garrett along with a Veronica Beard fashion show.
“This is our 32nd year. We’ve done a lot of these. It’s nothing short of a miracle that everyone’s still coming out. We have 25 drugs on the market now to help stop the progression of MS, so somebody being diagnosed today versus when I was diagnosed, the future’s bright,” Davis says. There’s so much. I think we’ve raised around $60 million, but we’ve spent it very carefully and we have some amazing drugs on the market.”
She adds: “They’re really helping a lot of people live a different quality of life, so I’m really grateful that we can do that.”
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