Jackson Olson's Surprising Reason for Avoiding Maggie Sajak's Gaze on 'DWTS'
Jackson Olson is grateful to have the support of his girlfriend, Maggie Sajak, in the Dancing With the Stars audience, but he tries not to look at her while performing.
"It's so awesome [to have her here]. I try not to look at her during the dance because I know that she's smiling," Olson, 28, exclusively told Us after his Viral Hits Night performance on Tuesday, September 22.
Olson gushed over Sajak's positive demeanor, adding, "I know that she's so excited and smiling. And if I looked at her, I would just like be like, 'Ah!'"
He continued: "But it's awesome, and she's so supportive of both of us, too. She was wearing the Team Banana ballroom shirt today, so that was cool."
Maggie, 31, has been a supportive presence in the crowd so far this season, but her famous father, Pat Sajak, has yet to make an appearance.
"We need to [have him here]," Olson told Us. "I think he'll be at one of these."
Tuesday's episode of the ABC competition show had Olson and his pro partner, Emma Slater, performing a foxtrot to “That’s So True” by Gracie Abrams, which earned an 18 out of 30 from the judges.
"We were still exhilarated. What I realized about this show is that one point difference is so drastic. It is more than I've ever seen," the athlete told Us. "Like, in baseball, your batting average is from zero to 1,000 points. So if you're hitting 360 or 300, it's not that you're like, 'All right, whatever.' That's 60 points, but it's not that much."
Olson was thrilled to see his scores improving from night one, saying, "We got 5s last week, 6s this week. You could see how excited we were about it."
The duo praised the way each of them has handled the ups and downs of putting on a performance in such limited time.
"I do feel like, naturally, we're very sunny people. I think — if I may pat us both on the back — I kind of feel like that's a bit of a superpower," Slater, 37, noted. "Like, if you can wake up every day and just naturally be happy and find joy, I think that's such a strength. You're able to love on everybody. You're able to see beauty everywhere."
She continued: "You can find reasons to be happy every day. That's an amazing thing and I hope that people can see that. I know that sometimes that's not easy to do, but if you can, that's the best."
Looking ahead, Slater and Olson teased big plans for Yacht Rock Week.
"The postures had a really big improvement, and we're going to keep going, because this is the new standard," she noted. "We've been working on all of these things and each new dance has [a] different technique to add to it. But I'm really excited to teach him that technique and just build, build, build."
Olson, meanwhile, hopes he can keep making the judges proud, saying, "I really took it to heart this week when they all said last week, 'Jackson, it was [a] great performance, but there were a lot of bad parts of your technique.' We took some moves out that might have been a little bit too frantic, and I was like, 'Oh, my gosh, we're taking out moves that I learned already.' But Emma's like, 'No, it's going to be for the better.' And it was."
Dancing With the Stars airs on ABC and Disney+ Tuesdays at 8 p.m. ET.
