Maria Menounos is admitting for the first time that she’s so badly injured from her run on ABC’s “Dancing With the Stars” she’s forced to use an electric scooter to get around the DWTS set.

“My partner has started calling me Grandma,” she laughed. “The doctors told me I shouldn’t continue dancing. They ordered me to stop. But I refused, even though I am in so much pain.” Maria confessed ahead of rehearsals for tonight’s double dance of the samba and Viennese waltz on Tuesday’s double elimination.

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Maria and Derek Hough, her partner, celebrated the launch of Bud Light Lime’s margarita-flavored alcoholic beverage “Lime-a-Rita’ poolside at Mandalay Bay appropriately at a Cinco de Mayo party Saturday and then were back on the rehearsal grind the very next day.

Maria spoke to the Las Vegas Sun of her obvious on-screen tenderness toward dance partner, Hough, “I will be forever in debt to Derek because this has been the best experience of my life. We are together, but not together. When you are touching each other while dance rehearsing eight hours a day, it’s natural we look affectionate to anybody watching us. We’re just very comfortable together, and Derek has brought out the very best in me, however, I will admit when this season is over, I am going to stalk him because I want to continue dancing with him. If he gets a new partner for the next season, I’m going to be in his trunk and take her place!”