By about age 12, I would prefer to stay up and watch the stars than go to sleep. I started learning. I started going to the library and reading. But it was initially just watching the stars from my bedroom that I really did. There was just nothing as interesting in my life as watching the stars every night.
I was completely with the reality TV boom for a while. I really liked a lot of the reality TV, and the one that lost me was the ballroom dancing one they do, 'Dancing with the Stars.' That was the one where I watched it and I was perplexed. I thought it was really boring.
The freedom to be someone else entirely and be different versions of something. That's what I loved and I loved watching movies and I loved watching television, I loved reading books. That kind of escapism into another world was my favorite thing.
I was first introduced to dancing through the TV: I remember watching ballet, jazz and ballroom dancing when I was very little. But I felt no connection with it whatsoever: it was just like watching a Tom and Jerry cartoon.
When I was younger and first started watching MTV I loved watching TRL. I loved watching my favorite singers/bands perform.
It was a really wonderful experience [at Hi Honey, I'm Home show]. I loved Nick At Nite at the time, and I was obsessed with watching it, so just to meet some of the more experienced stars of the older shows was a real treat and a thrill for me.
I flew home to Pittsburgh, and my management called me to ask if I wanted to perform on 'Dancing With the Stars' with Charlie Puth. I'm like, 'What? I grew up watching the show!'
I had the usual friends who pointed out constellations of stars. But it really was watching the stars. It was getting some sense of the motion of the earth. I found it a remarkable thing.
I think when I was young, let's call it high school, and even before that, I just loved comedy, and I loved comedians. I grew up watching Laurel and Hardy. That's really a long time ago. I loved Jerry Lewis. I just loved comedians.
Joining 'Dancing With the Stars,' you really don't know what you are in for or what to expect.
When I signed up for 'Dancing with the Stars,' I was nervous. If I threw everything off, there are 10-15 million people watching, and that would be a negative viewpoint of deaf people, and I didn't want that.
I learned dancing because I loved dancing. It took away the pain, it took away everything, I was happy when I was dancing. I got a lot of respect when I was dancing: people respected my art, they didn't only respect my body.
'Dancing With the Stars' was fun, and it opened me up to dancing.
I don't think there's better dancing out there than 'Dancing with the Stars.'
The moment I stopped spending so much time chasing the big pleasure of life. I began to enjoy the little ones, like watching the stars dancing in moonlit sky or soaking in the sunbeams of a glorious summer morning.
There is really no other job in the world like 'Dancing With the Stars.'