People told Jen Affleck not to compete on ‘Dancing With the Stars’ just 2 months postpartum. She’s not listening.

Jen Affleck isn't new to sharing her ups and downs on social media, but being flipped and spun through the air is a new kind of content for the influencer and mom of three. As she spends between five and eight hours in a studio every day preparing to compete on Dancing With the Stars, she’s still bringing her kids along for the ride. There’s one in a stroller behind her in the background of a recent viral post.

Everyone wants to know how she’s training for the ultra-athletic competition show Dancing With the Stars just weeks after giving birth in July. Truth is, she doesn’t really know if she can do it or how successful she’ll be. She just has to try.

"With my second baby, I ran the New York City Marathon three months postpartum,” she tells Yahoo casually. “So I thought, 'You know what? If I can do that, I think I can do this!'"

The 26-year-old first broke out as an influencer on TikTok, known for sharing videos of herself dancing on her kitchen countertops. She then became part of MomTok, a group of young Mormon moms from Utah who found viral fame online and now star in Hulu’s reality show The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives.

Jen’s trajectory on the show has not been easy. The first season featured an explosive fight with her husband, Zac Affleck. In the second season, they reunite after being separated, which causes tension and disappointment in her friend group. When she found out she was pregnant with her third child, the difficulties in her marriage and the drama within MomTok compounded her prenatal depression. She stopped filming six episodes into the season to seek mental health treatment.

It would have been easy for Jen to leave the limelight entirely and revert to a life offscreen, but she’s not really in the business of taking it easy.

"I was a bit traumatized after Season 2, to be honest. The easier thing would have been to just leave [the show] and to not come back, but I definitely knew that if I didn't come back, I would have regretted it for the rest of my life,” she says.

It was scary for her to return to Mormon Wives, but going on Dancing With the Stars, regardless of what other people’s expectations were for her body, was a no-brainer. She’s watched the show as long as she can remember. Her moves might be TikTok-famous, but she doesn’t have any formal training.

“I have no dancing experience besides being Latina and just growing up dancing … at parties,” Jen says. “That’s really the only experience I have. That and dancing on countertops.”

After just a week of ballroom practice, she was covered in bruises and blisters, shocked by how demanding the sport was on her body. She says she felt like an old lady. A lot of people have told her that she shouldn’t do the show and that she should relax instead. But she knows what she needs.

“Honestly, it’s doing what I love that helps me get out of the rut … that helps me feel more inspired in life,” she says. “Dancing With the Stars is filling my cup, and because I’m filling my cup, I’m able to give more to my kids, my family and the world.”

‘I'm becoming a better version of myself’

Trying to find a way to keep depression at bay is what made Jen famous in the first place. She says she was stuck in her house as a stay-at-home mom when she started sharing videos of herself dancing to cope with postpartum and have fun with her kids. Other young mothers have re-created her posts, which she loves. From there, her influencer career took off.

The transition from TikTok celebrity to reality TV celebrity was a big step for her.

“With social media, you’re able to edit yourself in the way that you want to. With reality TV, you have to let that go,” she says. “It’s scary and it takes a lot of vulnerability.”

That vulnerability has been good for her personal growth.

"I feel like my life in general hasn't even really changed,” she says. What really has changed is more awareness to myself, my relationship, and through that, I feel like I'm becoming a better version of myself."

Jen admits she’s had one “crazy moment” that made her realize that she’s an actual, recognizable star, though: She met Ben Affleck and his daughter, and his daughter was a huge fan. That’s all she could say about the encounter — we’ll find out when Secret Lives of Mormon Wives Season 3 is out on Nov. 13.

It was a momentous interaction for her. In the show’s first season, she claimed that her husband Zac was one of the famous actor’s cousins, but in the months that followed, viewers questioned if that was true. It was not, which led the other members of MomTok to poke fun at her about it, with some questioning how honest a person she could be if she lied about something like this.

It wasn’t a lie to Jen, though — just a misunderstanding. She got into an onscreen fight with Zac about it, and he accused her of taking a family joke too seriously.

"You're not gonna make me feel stupid when that's all I've been told from your family," she says on the show.

It seems Jen is set for a redemption arc this season. That’s not necessarily her goal, though. She’s focused on letting her kids know “that if you really want something and you have a dream, anything’s possible … I’ve been able to do it with three babies.”

“I think that’s why I’m doing everything that I’m doing — so I can show them that I did the scary thing,” she continues. “It’s daunting … being in a place where people can judge you. But I realized the key to success is being able to cringe at yourself, and also just being OK with being uncomfortable.”

Another member of the Secret Lives of Mormon Wives cast, Whitney Leavitt, is also part of this season of Dancing With the Stars.

Jen says it’s nice to have someone to share the experience with who’s also a mom of three. She couldn’t say much else — it’s sure to be a plot point on both of their shared reality TV shows — but they have been playfully stirring up the competition between them through TikToks.

‘We’re staying humble’

When the TV and phone cameras aren’t rolling, life is pretty normal for Jen. She still goes to the grocery store without people bombarding her for selfies. She just flew first class for the first time on her way to New York to promote Dancing With the Stars, and called Zac from the Delta Sky Club, stressed about whether or not she belonged there.

“I didn’t grow up with a lot of money … this is still weird for me,” she says. “I’m like, ‘Do I deserve this?’”

Her humility shines through so much of our conversation. She’s not just coy about her sudden fame — she’s humble about her dancing prowess, her athleticism and her persistence.

“They say stay humble or be humbled. And I'm like, ‘We're staying humble!’” she jokes.

She is looking forward to being onstage. It’s vindication for the time in ninth grade when she didn’t make the dance team. Rightfully so, she admits. She didn’t have the experience that other dancers did.

Her Dancing With the Stars partner, Jan Ravnik, is technically new to the show too — but like Jen, he’s a bit of a social media celebrity. He was one of Taylor Swift’s dancers at the Eras Tour. Regardless of how they fare in the competition, she’ll officially be able to say she has formal training.

Things haven’t been easy for Jen, but she’s always been open about that. Her relentless pursuit of her dreams despite her circumstances is something to be admired, whether she’s dancing on her table to make her kids laugh or competing for the coveted Mirrorball Trophy on network TV.