The Dancing with the Stars season 11 cast includes Jennifer Grey, who shockingly is 50! Check out the video clip, where Tom Bergeron chats with Jennifer Grey, asking (around 2:15) if people have unfair expectations about what she’ll bring to the dance floor.

Jennifer Grey says she’s 50, and starts to talk about it being a lot of years since Dirty Dancing, before she’s cut off. Rude!!

Jennifer Grey has apparently been asked to compete on the show in the past, but tells Zap2it, “Last year, my neck was killing me, so I said to them, ‘Let me have it checked out and see if I even could do this.’ I went to this neurological spine surgeon who I heard was the best.”

She told the doctor that she wanted to do Dancing With the Stars, but heard from the doctor that her neck was in bad condition after being involved in a car accident some years ago.

The surgeon removed a lump from her neck, which she believed to be benign but which “turned out to be cancerous.”

“I was so frightened of the surgery, I didn’t want to even consider that it would be successful. And it was so successful, I proceeded to do everything else on my ‘to-do’ list that I was afraid of, including doing this show. I figure that if I don’t do it now, I’ll be too old for it. My body is clearly giving out.”

Who knew Dancing with the Stars was such a lifesaver?