You pretty much know you’re going to get injured when you go on Dancing With the Stars, and it’s inevitable that jokes will be made about the
debatable celebrity of certain contestants. Why did you take the gig?
I’d
never watched Dancing With the Stars except for five minutes here or
there. I’m doing this because I have a 600-year-old house in Tuscany
and I’ve helped develop an incredible olive oil cream and a body scrub
with olive oil, cypress oil, and finely ground olive pits. I’ve also
got my cooking show with my husband at UndertheTuscanGun.com and a
cookbook coming out, so I want to brand the next phase of my life. The
pressure’s on to rock it out there, but I’m just struggling to stay on
the show so I can get my olive oil shit out there [laughs].

Your
earliest two IMDB credits are as club dancers in New York Beat Movie
and the hip-hop TV pilot Graffiti Rock. Viewers sometimes get bent out
of shape when a DWTS contestant has had previous dancing experience.
First
of all, I was 17 when I was in the background of Graffiti Rock, and I
was just shaking my tush. I’ve also been in several Madonna videos, but
I wasn’t dancing in any of them except for “True Blue,” and it wasn’t
really even choreography. The only time I auditioned for something
choreographed was for Kenny Ortega, who I’d brought out dancing to a
great club in New York City the night before. The acting part of the
audition was great, but for the dancing part I had to dance in a lineup
of professional dancers. When they went right, I went left, and Kenny
was dumbfounded. People assume that because I have a dancer’s body
visually that I’m going to be a fabulous dancer. When Maksim first met
me, he looked up and down at all my body parts and said, “This is going
to be a great season.” Meanwhile, I’ve never had a dance class, I’m
spastic, I’ve had two kids, and I can’t even touch my toes.

Luckily, you have the show’s hottest professional dancer as your partner.

With
the best butt, I might add. I’m staring at it as we speak. I chose
Maksim because I saw a raw sensuality in him that I thought, as a
strong woman, maybe I could bring out in him. I knew we could have a
great time, but I also needed someone who would make me work hard
because I can sometimes be lazy when it comes to physical activity.
He’s relentlessly hard on me, and it’s the only way I’ll be able to
continue in this. I get bored very easily, so without him I’d probably
say, “Let me just rip the other side of my neck and get the fuck off
this competition.” He’s such a tough, macho, passionate, sexy brute.

I’m sure he doubles your gay vote.
Yeah,
he definitely has his following too. Knowing that I have a huge gay
following, I actually tweeted when I first got the offer from Dancing With the Stars, “By the way, I’m thinking about who my partner should
be. What do you guys think?” Everyone was like, “Maks! Maks! Maks!” I
was like, “OK, well, that’s who I’m going to ask for.”