Joe Amabile says he 'almost snapped' Jenna Johnson's neck on Dancing With the Stars: 'I almost killed you'

No one ever tells you that dancing can be an extreme sport.

Bachelorette alum and Dancing With the Stars season 27 contestant Joe Amabile learned that fact the hard way, as he reminisced on a recent episode of his Bachelor Happy Hour podcast. Welcoming his DWTS partner, pro dancer Jenna Johnson, to the pod, he asked, "Remember when I almost snapped your neck?"

Johnson immediately recalled, "The Halloween episode, yeah," with Amabile adding, "I almost killed you. I swear on my life, she almost died. It was insane."

Amabile (also known as "Grocery Store Joe") and Johnson had a good run on the reality competition series in 2018, making it to the semifinals, where they were eliminated alongside Fuller House's Juan Pablo Di Pace and pro Cheryl Burke. On the podcast, Amabile playfully ribbed his own perceived ineptitude in the ballroom, but like a good partner, Johnson built him back up with words of encouragement.

"Honestly, Joe, that was your best dance, and it was the ending move. We had just one lift," she said. "He put his arm in the wrong spot. I was going to do a backflip. I don't know how I did that."

Amabile explained that the arm flub "was the only thing I couldn't do. It was the only position I couldn't lift her in. It was like, 'Just don't do this.' And it was what I did."

The duo's Frankenstein-themed Argentine tango almost went off without a hitch, with Amabile effortlessly assisting Johnson through all manner of complicated turns, twists, and flips. Once they reached their final standing position, however, Amabile placed his arms on either side of Johnson's waist and began to spin her in a cartwheel, but once she rotated 180 degrees, her body went rigid, as Amabile had hit the extent of his reach. She awkwardly flipped forward rather than completing the cartwheel, lest she fall straight on her head.

Amabile recalled with good humor that "Jenna would walk off stage when we would get done dancing and she'd look at me and she'd go, 'What happened?' And I would look at her and say, 'I don't know!'"

Amabile's podcast cohost, fellow Bachelor franchise alum, and now wife, Serena Pitt, joked, "This is why she wants a football player. She's like, 'They would never do that to me.'"

Pitt was referencing rumors that spread at the outset of season 27 that Johnson was displeased with her Amabile pairing, preferring an NFL star like DeMarcus Ware, who competed that season with pro Lindsay Arnold.

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Johnson reiterated her fondness for Amabile on the podcast but didn't deny that she'd have preferred a footballer partner. She enumerated her reasons: "I've never had a football player. I've always wanted to partner with them because, again, they're athletic, they are totally down to be coached and yelled at… It's a lot of hours. So they've had that experience. And then also they're usually pretty big and strong, so they can lift the girl all over the place."

Lifting the girl all over the place may not have been Amabile's specialty, but his Bachelor brother-in-arms Joey Graziadei, who joined Johnson for the interview, eventually took Johnson to the gold on the most recent season of Dancing With the Stars, becoming the first male Bachelor contestant to do so.

Listen to Johnson and Graziadei on Bachelor Happy Hour above.