ABC DWTS co-host Alfonso Ribeiro.
“Dancing With the Stars” co-host Alfonso Ribeiro and his wife said their daughter, Ava Sue, is on the mend following a scary scooter accident that resulted in emergency surgery hours before her fourth birthday party.
According to People, in May 2023, Ribeiro’s wife, Angela, told fans on Instagram that little Ava is “doing better and better each day” after she was asked how her daughter is “healing,” and she praised the youngster for being a “trooper.” In the now-expired IG story, a photo of the little girl showed still-raw skin and some bandages on her arms.
And Ribeiro also gave an update during a pitstop on “The Tamron Hall Show.”
Here’s what you need to know:
Alfonso Ribeiro Said Ava’s Accident Was “Pretty Frightening”
The day before Ava’s birthday, Ribeiro posted an Instagram photo of his daughter after she fell off of a riding scooter. The child had cuts on her face and large bruises and gashes on her right arm.
“Not the kind of day you want the day before turning 4,” the DWTS host wrote, before thanking Kare Skin MD for doing emergency surgery on his daughter to lessen the chance of permanent scarring.
On the “Tamron Hall Show,” Ribeiro addressed a photo of Ava dressed up as a princess for her birthday party. In the pic, the injuries on her face were noticeable. “You can kind of see it on her face but we’re hiding her arm,” he said. “But she had to have surgery the day before [her birthday]. She had road rash and it was pretty frightening, but she was such a trooper.”
In addition to Ava, Ribeiro is the father of Alfonso Lincoln, 9, Anders Reyn, 8, and Sienna, 20, the latter of whom is his daughter from a previous relationship, per Entertainment Tonight.
Alfonso Ribeiro Said His Daughter Has a Long Road Ahead of Her
While after-hours emergency sprung into action on the day of the accident, Ribeiro said there is still a long road for Ava. During an appearance on “Live With Kelly and Mark,” the ABC host revealed that his daughter fell hard off of the scooter and “had basically road rash on her face and arm, and so they had to scalpel off all the skin” during the emergency surgery. “It’s going to be a long process,” he added of his daughter’s recovery, according to People.
As a sidenote, he also revealed that his wife had a premonition that something bad was going to happen that day, so much so that she brought the family and their nanny into the kitchen to tell them to be extra careful with Ava ahead of her birthday party. “[She said] ‘I have a feeling my daughter is going to the ER this week. Do not let her do anything that she can get hurt doing,’” Ribeiro said.
“That obviously wasn’t listened to,” he added. “And so my nanny was running back into the house to get pads and stuff and [Ava] went on a little sit-down scooter anyway.”
In an Instagram post, mama Ribeiro called her gut feeling a “motherly intuition.” “I announced to the fam, kids, sitter & friends helping out getting ready for Ava’s birthday party that ‘we are not doing anything crazy or dangerous today that could potentially end up with an ER visit,’” she wrote. “I literally made everyone lock eyes to me when I said these words. Sadly, my words were soon forgotten and long story short, this poor girl crashed off a sit-down scooter.”