Giada De Laurentiis is facing down a painful toe injury just days before her “Dancing With the Stars” debut.
The celebrity chef, 56, revealed the gnarly setback in an Instagram video Tuesday, showing fans a close-up of her visibly bruised middle toe on her right foot. She traced the purple discoloration with a red arrow, noting the damage wrapped all the way around the digit.
“As you can see, it’s quite purple, and it wraps all the way around,” she said in the clip.
“I’m for sure going to lose a toenail I think,” she added, assessing the damage with a sigh.
Despite the pain, De Laurentiis struck a resigned tone about the timing. “We’ll figure it out tomorrow,” she said. “Part of the game.”
The Food Network star is set to compete alongside pro partner Alan Bersten when Season 35 premieres next Tuesday on ABC. The injury leaves her with precious little recovery time before she hits the ballroom floor.
De Laurentiis’s decision to finally join the long-running competition came after a decade of invitations from the network. She said earlier this month that ABC had approached her roughly 10 times over the years, and she repeatedly declined.
“This time, I thought, with my daughter pushing me and with my daughter out of my house [at college] this is a really good time for me to go on a new adventure and push myself to do something I’ve never done,” she shared in the interview.
Her daughter Jade, 18, proved to be the decisive factor in changing her mother’s mind. But even with Jade’s encouragement, De Laurentiis nearly backed out at the last moment.
“I tried to get out of it,” she admitted. “Right before I dropped her off, I was like, ‘I can’t. This is just too much.’ And she’s like, ‘Mom! Pull up your boots and let’s go. Get it together.'”
The chef enters a crowded field of competitors that includes several performers with substantial dance backgrounds. Among the most prominent is “Step Up” star Jenna Dewan, 45, who previously worked as a Janet Jackson backup dancer and has faced criticism over whether her experience creates an unfair advantage.
Dewan pushed back against those complaints in a recent interview, drawing a sharp distinction between her commercial dance training and the demands of ballroom.
“Let’s be clear. It’s two different languages,” she insisted.
“There’s parts of my dance training that’s helpful, obviously. I’ve learned choreography, I can perform, but there is a certain sense of unlearning for me,” Dewan continued. “It almost threw me off initially because I had to unlearn a lot of — I don’t want to say bad habits — but just habits of the style that I’m used to.”
Noting that ballroom represents a “brand-new technique,” she explained the mental adjustment required to adapt her body to unfamiliar partnering and footwork patterns.
De Laurentiis also faces competition from “Glee” alum Harry Shum Jr., another contestant with extensive prior dance experience. Whether the chef’s bruised toe will put her at any further disadvantage remains to be seen as the premiere approaches.
The Season 35 premiere of “Dancing With the Stars” airs next Tuesday on ABC.