“Dirty Dancing” actress Jennifer Grey is recovering after back surgery to repair an injury aggravated from her victorious stint on “Dancing with the Stars,” People magazine reported Monday.
Grey’s physical pain was featured throughout her run on the competition but on the first night of the ABC show’s two-night finale, Grey was in severe pain from a ruptured disc in her back. Undeterred by the injury, she went on to win the Mirrorball Trophy with professional dance partner Derek Hough on Nov. 23.
“She was in tears. She absolutely could not move,” her doctor, Dr. Robert S. Bray Jr., told the celebrity magazine of her pain during the show’s final days. “Pain was shooting down her leg.”
After her victory, Grey participated in some celebratory festivities across the US but soon had “a huge fragment” extracted from her back in a December procedure at the D.I.S.C. Sports and Spine Center in Marina del Rey, Calif.
“I’m still recovering at home. I have to rest a bit more, but I feel great — completely pain free,” Grey, 50, told the celebrity magazine.