Brian Austin Green addressed his recent absence from the Dancing With the Stars audience amid fiancée Sharna Burgess‘ return to the ballroom.
“I was there a lot in the beginning,” Green, 53, exclusively told Us while promoting his appearance on the Monday, October 12, episode of Fox’s Celebrity Name That Tune. “[Production] has cracked down a little bit on young kids being there.”
Green said it has been “a little harder” for him to show up while taking care of his and Burgess’ 4-year-old son, Zane. (The actor also shares three children with ex Megan Fox.)
“I can’t be there with Zane and the kids. So we have found a time when it works where they can be home with someone and I can go,” he explained. “I’m always there, whether I’m sitting in the audience or I’m sitting at home watching. I’m always rooting for [Sharna]. So we figure out from episode to episode what works.”
Green acknowledged that there have been challenges while adjusting to Burgess, 41, returning as a pro for season 35, adding, “The Dancing With the Stars schedule is a pretty packed one. They have a lot of stuff that they do, so it’s not the time that I’m used to [having] with her. It’s just taking getting used to. It is going OK, it’s going to be really busy for the next month and a half if she makes it all the way to the end.”
He continued: “So compartmentalize the stuff, and then when it’s done and then she has time, then it’s cool. Now we have our time back together again and it’s the same thing when I’m working.”
The couple are also preparing for Burgess to briefly go on the road for the DWTS tour.
“The tour isn’t until next year,” Green noted. “It’s, like, February and March that she’s doing it. She’s doing one week in February and one week in March. Just to go and do it. Because she loves dancing and she absolutely should experience the fan reaction because she’s loved and people love the fact that she’s back, so she should go do it.”
Green doesn’t mind having to “hold down the fort” at home. “Then it’ll be the same thing when I’m gone doing something,” he told Us. “She’ll be holding down the fort. We are learning the trade off of that.”
While Burgess is focused on DWTS with partner Tyler Cameron, Green got to appear on Fox’s Celebrity Name That Tune.
“I’m just freewheeling right now. I’m lucky enough to have this time off right now, so these things have worked out. Name That Tune we shot in Ireland. So I had this amazing trip to Ireland with my fiancée,” he recalled. “It was great. There are a lot of these things where they just work out and it’s just a bonus all around. Things just fall into place.”
Green was thrilled to go up against Daphne Zuniga as he competed to raise money for Race to Erase MS, a nonprofit organization dedicated to funding multiple sclerosis research.
“It’s an organization that I’ve worked with for a long time. When I first started doing it in the ’90s, it was an actual race. We would raise money and it’s been going on for so long now. It’s hard sometimes picking charities because charity work is difficult,” he explained to Us. “MS is something that is so close. I genuinely feel like within my lifetime — within the next few years, — there could absolutely be a cure that is found. I just love the concept of helping with something that could and should be so close. They’ve been fighting it for a while now. So it’s one of those things where it’s like, ‘God, it’s gotten so close.’ It just continues to develop and get closer. Why not just help push them over the finish line?”
Celebrity Name That Tune airs on Fox Mondays at 8 p.m. ET.
