The “Buttons” star left her DWTS partner wincing with pain after accidentally kicking him in the face during Scherzinger is busily training for her debut on the reality dance contest, but she nearly threw her debut into jeopardy after slicing open Hough’s face with a swift kick to the head, which narrowly missed his right eye.

Hough is nursing a laceration to the face, but the couple is expected to compete as scheduled later this month. Nicole will face off against fellow celebs, including Baywatch babe Pamela Anderson, NFL star Chad Ochocinco, and reality mom Kate Gosselin, when Dancing With The Stars swings into Season 10 March 22.

Oh dear, we hope it isn’t swine flu!

“Woke up with the seirous sweats,” the former DWTS champ Tweeted early yesterday. “I think I’m getting the flew … Had a bath now trying to get more sleep.”

“Bummer,” Derek continued. “Tough week.”

According to his Dancing partner, Joanna Krupa, also had a big fever.

“poor derek has a 104 temp so he ll need to rest so he can get better soon,” she Tweeted.

Derek’s condition worsened as Thursday morning turned to afternoon.

“My whole body is aching like crazy,” Derek wrote. “I can barely stand up … And I’m coughing like crazy.. This sucks “

While Derek recovers, Maksim Chmerkovskiy — who was voted off Season 9 with partner Debi Mazar two weeks — is helping Joanna learn her dance moves for next week:

“At the docs for 3 hrs today … Had a temprature of 104 … Had an IV in my arm for 2hrs … Maks is steppin up for me helpin jo…”

It’ll be interesting to see how that turns out since it’s well-documented that Maks and Joanna hate each other.

“i havent gotten any updates from derek how he is doing,” Joanna Tweeted Thursday evening. “my rehearsals with maks arent until later this evening. loooong day.”

Best wishes for a speedy recovery for Derek…

Tune in when Derek and Joanna take the floor for real on the ninth season premiere of DWTS Sept. 21 @ 8PM on ABC.

The duo met and fell in love after they were paired together on the hit ABC series in 2008.

Citing the lack of any hard evidence, “Shannon never believed” the rumors that Derek, 24, is gay, but the “Derek Is Gay” banter that’s popular on many celebrity gossip websites started to bother her.

“Derek is very metrosexual, so many people just assume he’s gay. Shannon got sick of it, and agreed to end things.”

Derek, 24, began dating the 35-year-old American Pie star while competing together on the sixth season of Dancing With The Stars in 2008. On Friday, both posted Twitter statements announcing the split.

“Hi everyone, we wanted you all to know directly from us, that Shannon & I have decided to end our relationship as boyfriend & girlfriend… however, we love and care about eachother very much and will reamin friends and in eachothers lives,” the former couple wrote in nearly nearly identical messages on each of their Twitter pages.

“Thank you everyone for all your sweet words & encouragement – it really means a lot to me! Xoxo,” Shannon later Tweeted.

It looks like at least one good thing came out of Lil Kim’s ousting from Dancing With The Stars this week — the Brooklyn-born MC got to visit her biggest fan, the very smitten Regis Philbin.

Here’s a video clip of The Queen Bee and her professional dance partner Derek Hough showing off their fancy footwork on Live With Regis & Kelly — on location in Miami — on Thursday morning.

Two-time Dancing With The Stars champ Derek Hough is interested in replacing Zac Efron in Paramount Studio’s upcoming remake of Footloose, show tipsters have reportedly told The Chicago Sun-Times.

Efron, who got his start appearing in Disney’s High School Musical franchise, dropped out of the film based on Kevin Bacon’s 1984 hit last week.