Alix Earle Breaks Down Physical Toll of ‘Dancing with the Stars’

Alix Earle is sharing her intense experience training for Dancing with the Stars so far. 

On Sunday, Sept. 21, the TikTok star — who made her debut on the show’s Tuesday, Sept. 16 season premiere — revealed the physical toll that dance practice has had on her in a post on social media.

“I have bruises on my collarbone,” revealed the internet personality on TikTok as she drew herself a bath. “My toenail came off during practice today.”

Earle continued: “I thought week one was hard — the stamina, the stuff we’re doing, I’m like, ‘I don’t even know.’ ”

“I’m signing myself up for stuff that, like, I have yet to do. Like, there’s some tricks and things that I just can’t do, but I’m like, ‘Oh, I’ll do it,’ ” she added. “I’m starting to doubt myself a little bit, but I’m going to keep trying.”

On the show’s premiere, Earle brought down the house alongside pro Val Chmerkovskiy with a fiery cha-cha to the Britney Spears hit “Circus,” complete with a whip and a ring of actual flames. 

After the performance, Earle spoke to PEOPLE, revealing the advice that her NFL star boyfriend Braxton Berrios gave her via phone — he couldn’t attend live because of football commitments — before she headed to the stage.

“I called him on the way [to DWTS], just feeling nervous and unsure and uncertain,” Earle said. “He assured me that feeling nervous is a privilege, and it’s okay to be outside of your comfort zone.”

Added the content creator: “He always says this before every game — it’s like, if you’re nervous, you’re doing something right, and I don’t know, getting out of your comfort zone. So it was nice to have him just reassure me of that.”

Ahead of her performance, Earle opened to her followers on TikTok, revealing how difficult she was finding their dance.

“I can’t do the whole dance from start to finish without, like, heaving,” she admitted. “I seriously think I need to, like, start going on runs or something. We do 15 seconds and I’m like, ‘I have to sit on the floor and take a break.’ But I think now having our dance completed is just making it, for some reason, feel a lot more real to me.”

Earle has been a longtime DWTS fan — and she was even in attendance during the taping of the show’s 500th episode in November.

“I have been watching it every week religiously,” Earle said in a TikTok at the time. “And I heard that going to the show live is really fun.”

“I also grew up dancing, so I just love a good performance,” she added. “But a lot of people didn’t know that about me. I was dancing competitively until my junior, senior year of high school.”

This season, Earle is sharing the stage with a who’s who of internet stars, including the likes of social media star Dylan Efron, The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives’ Jen Affleck and Whitney Leavitt, Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour dancer Jan Ravnik, and Robert Irwin, among a host of other stars.

Though there were no eliminations during the season premiere, the hosts said there will be a double elimination during the second episode.

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Dancing with the Stars airs Tuesdays at 8 p.m. ET on ABC and Disney+.