Our next guest was here right before the pandemic hit.
In less than a year, she's managed
to go viral once again with her almost perfect floor routine
take a look.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
[CHEERING]
[MUSIC PLAYING]
[CHEERING]
[MUSIC PLAYING]
[CHEERING]
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Yes, indeed.
[CLAPS] Please welcome back UCLA gymnast, Nia Dennis.
[CHEERING AND APPLAUSE]
Hi, Ellen.
Hi, Nia.
It's so good to be back.
It's fun to have you back.
You know what?
I wish you could be here, though,
to do another floor routine.
You were one of the last guests that we had here in the studio
before we had to shut down.
I know, that's so crazy.
Thank you.
It's such an honor to be on the show one
time, let alone two times.
Thank you so much for having me back.
I'm so excited.
It is our pleasure.
I love that routine.
Tell everybody about the routine and why it was so important.
So this routine, I believe, is a reflection of everything
that I am as a woman today.
And I picked a lot of really influential artists,
Black artists that had a huge impact in the Black community.
For starters, Kendrick Lamar, he's
a huge activist in his music.
And we're not allowed to use words and sounds in our floor
routine.
So I figured if I wasn't going to be able to say it,
I wanted to do it in a different way
and shine light on gymnastics.
It was so good.
I thought it was brilliant.
And so it's been seen 21 million times.
And you got a tweet from Michelle Obama.
That is so insane, oh my gosh.
Michelle Obama-- first of all, I love you, I was speechless.
I found out, actually, in the middle of practice.
Literally all my teammates came over to me,
and we were all just cheering and so excited.
And not only did she tweet me, she actually
posted the entire video.
So that means she has to have it in her camera roll or something
and just must watch it for her free time, maybe?
[CHUCKLES] Anyway, love her.
Love her, too.
And this is your first performance since last season,
because you just did recover from shoulder surgery, right?
Yes.
So actually, last year, I was competing every weekend
with a torn bicep, torn labrum, arthritis, bone chipped off.
So it was really bad.
And I really took this time to heal and recover.
And I was working so hard every single day over quarantine.
I was in therapy every single day.
I was training, finding anywhere I could work out-- stairs,
a park--
doing everything I possibly could
to stay in shape so that by the time season started,
I would be ready.
And my biggest goal was to never give up, and that's what I did.
You did not give up.
[APPLAUSE]
It must be really hard to have meets
when you're socially distant.
Yeah, it's very difficult. As you know,
UCLA gymnastics are typically sold out events.
And we love the fans, we love the audience.
We feed off the crowd.
We love to play with the crowd.
And so we had cutouts of some alumni and super famous people
that were in the stands with us.
It was really like we weren't alone whatsoever.
Very cool, very cool.
What's next after graduation for you?
There's so many opportunities, and so many possibilities.
I have a lot of thinking to do.
But something I'm super interested in
is stunt doubling and dancing.
I love to dance.
tWitch, if you're in here, you can hear me,
can we have a dance session once?
I can teach you.
I got routines for you.
You just teach me how to flip.
We can just do an exchange.
OK.
I got you.
We can work it out.
OK, I can't wait to see that.
Well, we are so proud of you.
And we know we can't be at your competitions in person
so we made these for you.
[LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE]
It's Ellen and tWitch!
I love it.
Yes!
It's going to be at our meets.
Yep.
So we'll send those to wherever you're going to be.
Those will be wherever you are
Oh my goodness, I love it.
Thank you so much.
All right.
Nia, so good talking to you.
I look forward to having you back in the studio when we can.