Kirstie Alley Blames ‘Dancing’ Practice Falls On Forgetting To Eat & Childhood Ear Injury

Kirstie Alley is defending herself after her calorie counting came into question on Monday night’s “Dancing with the Stars”

“I’m not doing it intentionally,” the actress, who has made no secret of her desire to lose weight, told Access Hollywood’s Shaun Robinson on Monday evening after it was revealed on “DWTS” that she stumbled in rehearsals, the result of not eating enough. “You go in at 10 and you start rehearsing and you lose track of time. I mean, you’re just dancing and dancing. You lose track of time.

“I’m not going like, ‘Oh! I’m not going to eat!’ I just wasn’t paying attention… It was a very intense time trying to get something right and I just didn’t notice that my blood sugar had dropped,” Kirstie said of the falls in practice that led her partner, Maksim Chmerkovskiy, to stop their session.

Maks, however, chimed in immediately and said Kirstie’s lack of calories continued after practice too.

“See the problem is that when we’re done with rehearsal and she goes home, she still doesn’t eat,” Maks said.

“I do,” Kirstie protested.

Maks revealed that she nearly collpased four times during rehearsals, but Kirstie added another explanation for being unsteady on her feet.

“Here’s the thing, my blood sugar must have dropped. Also, for three days [I] was like clearing my ears ‘cause when I was little I had a broken ear drum,” she continued. “I think there’s a little something, ‘cause when I was spinning it sort of felt weird.”

Kirstie’s weight loss since the show began has been visible, but the actress insisted she does not know the exact number of pounds she’s shifted from her frame.

“I don’t know how much weight I’ve lost,” she told Shaun. “I’m getting in a lot better shape. It’s like a different sort of a thing, you get skinny but it doesn’t mean you’re strong.”

“Do you feel stronger now?” Shaun asked.

“A thousand times stronger,” she said.

Beyond talk of her weight, Kirstie confirmed she bumped into George Clooney as he celebrated his 50th birthday with a quiet dinner at Mr. Chow in Beverly Hills last week with girlfriend Elisabetta Canalis.

“He just got up and came over. I was with Kelly Preston who used to be engaged to George,” Kirstie explained of the run-in. “I’ve known George for years and years and he said he was turning 50 in 15 minutes. He wasn’t thrilled about that and so we were teasing him going like, ‘Oh my God! Yeah, you really look old. And in like, 15 minutes, you’re going to look so old!’ But he of course looks great. He has an amazing girlfriend. It was good.”