Jenna Ortega had COVID during memorable Wednesday dance scene

The Netflix original series Wednesday has built up quite a fanbase since hitting the platform in November 2022, with viewers praising Jenna Ortega for her iteration of Nevermore misfit Wednesday Addams.

Wednesday continues to grow in popularity on Netflix, with its most recent week of Nov 28-Dec 4, 2022, gaining 411.29 million watch hours and making the top 10 in the TV series category in 93 countries across the platform. Since it hit the streaming service, it has also received the impressive title of the most-watched English-language series, gaining an outstanding 341.23 million hours watched from Nov 23-27, 2022.

Following its release, an iconic dance scene featured in the show has gone viral, all of which was performed by Ortega while she was sick with covid.

In a November 2022 interview with NME, Ortega spoke on the matter:

"“I had woken up with the body aches. I felt like I had just been hit by a car the day before, and I felt like a little goblin had been let loose in my throat and was scratching at the walls of my esophagus, so I definitely felt it. They were giving me medicine in between takes because we were waiting on the positive result.”"

The Wednesday star also described how she felt the day she performed the famous dance number: “It’s crazy because it was my first day with COVID, so it was awful to film, and I asked to redo it, but we didn’t have time, so that’s another thing too, I’m like, ‘oh man, I probably wasn’t at my best when I did that.’”

MGM, the production company for the Wednesday series, revealed in an email to NME that “strict COVID protocols were followed and once the positive test was confirmed production removed Jenna from set.”

Jenna Ortega performed Wednesday dance scene with COVID

During the well-received sequence, Wednesday dances to the ’80s cover song “Goo Goo Muck” by punk rock band The Cramps, at the school of outcasts Rave’N event.

When asked by NME about how she came up with the routine, Ortega stated:

"“I just kind of pulled from whatever I could. I realized two nights before I’ve really got to throw something together, and I watched a lot of Fosse, I watched videos of goth clubs in the ’80s, I watched Siouxsie and the Banshees because she was a reference made, Lene Lovich.”"

The social media impact of Jenna Ortega’s Wednesday dance scene

The routine has since been reenacted by many TikTok users, as well as receiving more than 11 million views on the video clip Netflix added to their YouTube account on Nov. 25, 2022.

It’s clear to see how the scene gained so much popularity, with Ortega flawlessly moving across the dance floor.

You can watch the popular scene audiences have been raving about here:

What did you think of the dance routine featured in the series? All eight episodes of Wednesday are available to watch on Netflix.