Dancing With The Stars is a live television spectacle like almost no other.
Combining professional dancers with B-list stars in a high-performance, high-pressure,
live-TV competition, almost anything can happen — and it sometimes gets pretty awkward.
These are some of the most uncomfortable Dancing With The Stars moments ever.
Why anyone allowed Geraldo Rivera to dress up as Donald Trump during Season 22 of Dancing
with the Stars is a mystery.
Although Twitter users ran amok with commentary after the performance, the cringe-worthy moment
was enough to send Rivera home after his first week of being on the show.
His partner slinked around him during the routine, spoofing Trump's wife, Melania.
Naturally, the judges weren't impressed.
"Unfortunately you did not make dance great again, but you did make me laugh."
Rivera apparently saw the end coming.
The Orlando Sentinel reported that after he got the boot, he quipped,
"If I didn't get eliminated tonight, I would have demanded a recount."
"Maybe you shouldn't wait until 72 to start dancing ha ha ha."
Ironically enough, the season also featured Trump's ex-wife, Marla Maples, who believed
the president would have enjoyed the performance.
"I'm sure Donald would have a kick out of it."
Season 23 featured Olympian Ryan Lochte, who joined the cast after his 10-month suspension
from swimming competitions for allegedly lying about an armed robbery during the 2016 Rio
Olympic Games.
Lochte and his partner didn't perform a dance that warranted any uncomfortable groans, yet
what happened after they performed left the pair seriously flustered and distraught.
Judge Carrie Ann Inaba gave her verdict, then suddenly started shouting at someone while
the camera stayed focused on her face.
"Excuse me, hey, back off!"
The network suddenly went to commercial.
ABC later released actual footage of what really happened: two men wearing anti-Lochte
t-shirts swarmed the stage in protest, only to be met by security guards tackling them
to the ground.
The camera then panned to the audience, which featured even more hecklers.
After the episode aired, Lochte told CNN that was, quote, "a little hurt" by what had happened,
adding,
"You know, at that moment, I was really heartbroken.
My heart just sunk."
Although the Olympian did release a public apology on his Instagram and Twitter pages
initially after his alleged fib, there was clearly still some bad blood going around
amongst fans of the Olympic Games.
Of course, live TV being, well, live, sometimes you can't account for sudden wardrobe malfunctions.
During Season 22 of the show, pro-dancer Sharna Burgess suffered some unfortunate top-half
spillage while performing the tango with her celeb partner, NFL star Antonio Brown.
Dancing to a cover of The Rolling Stones' "Paint It Black," Burgess' bustier continuously
slipped down, with the buxom beauty failing to notice.
As the pair finished their routine and walked up to the judges' panel, Tom Bergeron slyly
made Burgess aware of what had happened.
"Pull it up just a touch, just for the family!
OK!”
“What?!"
In an interview with Entertainment Tonight a year later, the Aussie-born dancer dished
about the incident.
"I had that notorious nip slip about a year ago and so, I am covered in head-to-toe double-sided
tape!"
And she assured everyone that it wouldn't be happening to her again.
"Everyone at ABC was like, oh dear god, so now I get triple checked every show to make
sure that I am in nice and tight and nothing's going to fall out anywhere."
When the co-founder of Apple, Steve Wozniak, signed on to compete in Season 8's Dancing
with the Stars, he did it with a humble purpose.
According to The Guardian, he wanted to prove that, quote, "nerds can dance."
Try as he might, the tech legend simply couldn't cut it, getting himself and his partner Karina
eliminated in week four.
It was his first dance during week one, however, that definitely set the pace for the rest
of his time on the show — a cha-cha to a cover of Bachman Turner Overdrive's "You Ain't
Seen Nothing Yet."
Sure enough, fans certainly had never seen anything like this before: a jovial computer
programmer with a pink boa around his neck, dancing in a ballroom.
Although the Woz was beaming during the entire dance, he had zero rhythm, causing judge Bruno
to exclaim,
"I don't know if it was hilarious or delirious, it was like watching a Teletubby going mad
in a gay pride parade."
It wasn't any secret that Mischa Barton hated her brief stint on Season 22 of Dancing with
the Stars.
She loathed it so much, in fact, that when she opened up in an interview with The Ringer,
she revealed,
"It was like The Hunger Games.
It was all a popularity contest."
Lucky for Barton, she only lasted three weeks — probably since she looked visibly uncomfortable
during all her dances.
According to Fox News, even her dramatic behavior in the rehearsal before her performance raised
eyebrows.
To make matters worse, the actress seemed to want to put the blame on a variety of other
factors.
"I was relying on you to make it a positive experience.”
“You're already in the zone of not wanting to do this, that's my honest opinion."
Barton told host Tom Bergeron after the dance,
"We've had a really rough day of me not being able to hear the song.
[…] It's been a really rough week.
Today was a really bad rehearsal […] the live band, suddenly today I was being thrown
by everything.
It is what it is."
"That wasn't a dance, that was walking."
Speaking to The Ringer, Barton continued making excuses, like not getting along with her partner
and having a lack of creative control.
"I can't do another week of this.
He's just not getting it and it's horrible for me.”
She summed up her experience by saying,
"It was awful.
I was so glad to get kicked off."
It's no secret that Dancing with the Stars is a physically-demanding show.
Singer Marie Osmond loved the challenge, but had some scary results.
During Season 5, Osmond had just finished dancing the samba with her partner when they
stood by the judges' table to receive their scores.
As the judges discussed the duo's technique, Osmond's breathing progressively got louder
until she suddenly lost consciousness.
“You've got to show the gaiety and the fun of the samba..."
"Alright we're gonna take a commercial break."
While producers were worried and eventually made Osmond undergo a medical examination,
the singer kept things light-hearted after the show's quick commercial break.
According to Fox News, she giggled and said,
"Once in a while that happens to me when I get winded.
I stop breathing."
"I thought it was unique that I would fall in the shortest dress that I've worn in the
whole season…”
“Haha, yeah I know."
TV journalist Nancy Grace competed in Season 13 of Dancing with the Stars.
She lasted an impressive eight weeks — even after her embarrassing slip-up during her
performance in the second week.
Dancing the quickstep with her partner, Grace swiftly hopped and floated through the routine
until the end, where her quickstep turned a bit too quick — causing the buxom blonde
to spill out of her dress on camera.
Grace didn't realize the slip, either, allowing host Tom Bergeron to take the reins and alert
her.
Per Huffington Post, the host subtly hinted,
"On the European version that would be perfectly fine."
"It was a bit top-heavy at times, darling, and I got an eyeful, I'll tell you that."
A mortified Grace proceeded to immediately pull her dress up and cower away.
After the performance, the TV personality spoke to Us Weekly about the incident — but
denied a full-on wardrobe malfunction, saying,
"We have taken every precaution known to men in this dress right here.
I'm talking industrial size precaution.
There may have been, as Tristan said, a little bit of jiggling but there was absolutely not
a wardrobe malfunction."
Poor Nancy Grace makes the list yet again — this time remaining fully clothed, yet
allegedly letting something else slip on camera.
After her week three dance, Grace and her partner had a recap with the show's host,
Brooke Burke.
Briefly discussing their performance, the camera suddenly caught a low-pitched gurgling
noise, followed by Grace discreetly holding her stomach with one hand.
“They were smiling so big."
It all happened so quickly, but TMZ didn't hold back jumping to conclusions.
Immediately going after the TV journalist and asking her if she did, in fact, let some
gas slip, Grace cooly replied,
"As an ear-witness on the scene, I can absolutely exonerate Tristan, myself and Brooke.
However, the rest of the cast — seated just inches away — all remain under grave suspicion.
The investigation continues."
It sure did continue, getting progressively weirder with time.
A mere days after the alleged gas was passed, TMZ obtained information that a so-called
"fart fetish group" made an offer to ABC to, quote, "license the rights to the infamous
Nancy Grace fart footage."
A rep for the site told the tab,
"After viewing and hearing Nancy Grace's alleged 'toot' after her performance on Dancing with
the Stars, [we] would like to acquire the rights of the three-second footage.
[…] We wish to acquire this for our members of our website who are [...] 'Fart Fanatics'."
Season 12 star Kirstie Alley is the first to admit that the Dancing With The Stars rehearsals
can be tough.
Partnered with pro-dancer Maksim, the Cheers alum told The Daily Mail,
"It's really hard.
You're twisting things and he'll go, 'Just put your hips like this,' but they don't go
that direction."
Perhaps thanks to that intense training, the duo made it up to week eight of the contest.
They even got past a pretty big hiccup that occurred early on in the competition.
With the theme for the week relying on emotionally charged songs that resonate with stories of
celebs' pasts, Alley picked a meaningful connection — she danced the rumba as a tribute to her
late parents.
With the dance carrying so much emotional weight, you can imagine the devastation when
both Alley and Maksim took a tumble halfway throughout the performance.
Maksim later told ABC News about a sudden pain in his leg, saying,
"It never happened before.
… I guess [it was] like a charlie horse."
In a bizarre twist of fate, it turned out that the pair's dance actually fared quite
well.
Per the Daily Mail, judge Carrie Ann Inaba was even struggling to hold back tears as
she gave them her verdict, saying,
"Sometimes tragedy leads to amazingly beautiful moments."
A week after her unfortunate tumble with partner Maksim, Season 12 star Kirstie Alley suffered
yet another blunder — this time a loss of her shoe.
Dancing the waltz, the actress' shoe came off after a spin, leaving her to try and quickly
put it back on until Maksim came to help her up.
Even though this second hiccup was clearly uncomfortable for Alley, the judges decided
to let it pass, giving her a sympathetic score of 22 out of 30.
Judge Carrie Ann Inaba gushed,
"You didn't miss a beat!"
Speaking to People, Alley quipped that there was another reason for the seemingly-accidental
blunder, saying,
"I do think it's a conspiracy.
I think that the other girls came into my dressing room and tampered with my shoe.
And I'm not going to name any names…
Petra."
Although this marked the second time that the actress remained cool during a live mishap,
she still managed to put a jovial spin on things, saying,
"I don't know what you do when these things happen.
I'm an actress!
We go like this, 'Cut!
Cut!
What the f--- is up with this shoe?
I don't know.
Get her a new pair of shoes!
Get her 300 pairs of shoes.'"
"I feel like I have dragged Maks to the depths of hell."
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