Is there anyone the producers of ABC's Dancing With the Stars won't let on their show? Well,
based on the past 30 seasons, the answer might be... not really. Follow along as we revisit
some of the most controversial Dancing With the Stars contestants over the years.
When Tucker Carlson competed on Season 3 of Dancing With the Stars in 2006, he had not
yet become the infamous Fox News talking head that we know and... acknowledge, today. Don't
get us wrong, he was still a pot-stirrer even then. You may remember a viral clip of The
Daily Show host Jon Stewart grilling Carlson on a 2004 episode of CNN's Crossfire, a political
talk show that Carlson co-hosted.
In the clip, Stewart went so far as to call Carlson a "d---." CNN's president at the time,
Jonathan Klein, cited the incident when speaking to The New York Times about why the network
decided to cancel Crossfire a few months later. The conservative political commentator then
had a short-lived stint hosting his own MSNBC talk show, Tucker before finding a home on
Fox News — where he ramped up his rhetoric to 11.
Unfortunately for Carlson, he didn't get very far on Dancing With the Stars. According to
Entertainment Weekly, he acknowledged that his partner Elena Grinenko teaching him how
to dance was, quote, "like Einstein teaching addition to a slow child!" Recapping the episode,
the outlet also noted,
"No one else seemed to want him there anyway."
Two years after her mom became John McCain's surprising pick for Vice President, Sarah
Palin's daughter Bristol Palin competed on Season 11 of Dancing With the Stars. Wearing
a "Tea Party" T-shirt to rehearsals, Bristol showed up for the hardcore conservatives in
the television audience, and she managed to generate quite a bit of blowback in the process.
Though she consistently got some of the worst scores from the judges' table, the voting
public kept Bristol in the game up until the finale. This led some to whisper that large
numbers of Tea Partiers were keeping her alive, per ABC News. Matt Roush, a senior critic
at TV Guide, told ABC,
"There are people on the political blogs who are saying vote for Bristol as part of your
allegiance to the Palin brand."
Sarah brushed off the controversy in an interview with Barbara Walters, saying that she didn't
have time to call every Tea Party member and ask them to vote for her daughter. Nevertheless,
Dancing With the Stars fans were seriously peeved, and some even sent Bristol and her
partner death threats, according to Daily Beast.
Despite the Season 11 controversy, Bristol actually made a return in Season 15's all-star
cast. Her most memorable moment from this stint wasn't any of her dance performances,
though. It was when she lashed out at her partner Mark Ballas during a pre-taped video
package.
Fresh off of her nonstop, aggressive, and widely criticized coverage of the trial of
Casey Anthony, Nancy Grace joined the Season 13 cast of Dancing With the Stars in 2011.
Her participation in the show elicited groans from all corners of media, the internet, and
the legal profession in general.
Grace had long been criticized for her highly biased style of true crime reporting. The
New York Times' David Carr called her the, quote, "willful enemy" of "the presumption
of innocence." Her "Somewhere out there tonight, the devil is dancing" comment, made after
Anthony's not guilty verdict, was particularly criticized. Her casting on the show just weeks
later received criticism from the likes of The Baltimore Sun, which said,
"[Nancy Grace's casting is] such an exquisite example of how calculating and exploitative
prime-time network TV can be."
On Twitter one user quipped,
"When I see Nancy Grace trending, I click expecting to see, 'Nancy Grace Is No Longer
Allowed to Participate in Public Life.'"
But however distasteful people found Grace's appearance on the show at the time, perhaps
they'll be content to know that, ten years later, her DWTS tenure is mostly remembered
for one disputed nip-slip, according to Entertainment Weekly.
We'd say that celebrity chef Paula Deen's fall from grace following some truly horrifying
racist comments was one rare example of a true capital "C" Cancelation, were it not
for her later stint on Dancing With the Stars. You can't keep a good racist white lady down,
it appears. To quickly recap, in 2013, Deen and her brother were sued by a former manager
at her Savannah, Georgia, restaurant for racial discrimination, according to Radar Online.
In her deposition, which was released publicly, Deen admitted to using the N-word. When she
was asked,
"Have you ever used the N-word yourself?"
She answered by saying,
"Yes, of course."
She also expressed her admiration for a, quote, "southern plantation wedding," in which all
the servers were Black so as to recreate the look of the antebellum South, according to
Eater.
So while we know that Dancing With the Stars doesn't shy away from a controversial contestant,
inviting Deen to the ballroom seemed like a step too far even for them. According to
Deen's post-elimination interview with E! News, not even the judges were wild about
her being on the show.
"They have been from the start with me. It was apparent that they weren't crazy about
me being here."
Unfortunately for Deen, Dancing With the Stars wasn't enough to get her Food Network spot
back or the support of her former corporate partners. However, per Eater, it perhaps was
enough to keep book sales high.
Before appearing in Season 23 of Dancing With the Stars, the most embarrassing thing former
Texas governor Rick Perry had done on television was run for president in 2011. Highlights
from Perry's doomed campaign include the much-parodied "Strong" ad, in which he states,
"You don't need to be in the pews every Sunday to know that there's something wrong in this
country when gays can serve openly in the military but our kids can't openly celebrate
Christmas or pray in school."
Then there's the "Oops" debacle on the Republican primary debate stage, when he forgot the name
of a government agency he wanted to eliminate.
"I can't. The third one, I can't. Sorry. Oops."
Five years later, Perry made a highly goofy return to the national stage — er, ballroom
— on Dancing With the Stars. After one high-energy quickstep and a dazzlingly awkward paso doble,
Perry became the second contestant eliminated from the show. Despite the public backlash
to his appearance on the show, it turns out to have been a pretty good year for Perry
overall. He was later tapped to lead the Department of Energy — ironically the very department
whose name he forgot in the 2011 debate.
As soon as your public scandal gets itself a "gate" nickname, that's when you know it's
time to do some real damage control. It's a pretty good bet that this is what Ryan Lochte,
or Ryan Lochte's PR team, was thinking when he signed up for Season 23 of Dancing With
the Stars after "Lochtegate." The Olympic swimmer and one-time king of the himbos took
a reputational nosedive when it was discovered that his story about being robbed at gunpoint
in Rio was pretty much a lie, according to TIME.
If he was hoping that appearing on Dancing With the Stars would help clean up his image,
we guess that it kind of worked? But not enough to stop protestors from rushing the stage
during one of his performances. The incident left Lochte feeling, quote, "a little hurt,"
and he told CNN,
"My heart just sunk. It felt like somebody just ripped it apart."
The good news for Lochte is that the whole affair has by now been basically forgotten.
There are a few images from the Trump era that will live rent-free in the minds of those
who witnessed it firsthand for all eternity. One of those images is that of Trump's former
White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer descending a staircase on Dancing With the Stars in a
flashy yellow shirt with voluminous, puffy sleeves flapping around his arms. His appearance
generated immediate, furious backlash from viewers who thought the show was working a
little too hard to make Spicer look good — or at least inoffensive. As MSNBC commentator
Chris Hayes tweeted,
"Power is all about who gets forgiven. Who gets fresh starts."
Even Dancing With the Stars host Tom Bergeron wasn't thrilled with Spicer getting cast,
tweeting that this was not what he had in mind when he made suggestions to the executive
producers for the upcoming season. He wrote,
"Chief among [my suggestions] was my hope that DWTS, in its return following an unprecedented
year-long hiatus, would be a joyful respite from our exhausting political climate and
free of inevitably divisive bookings from ANY party affiliations."
Spicer's critics may not have been pleased to see him on the show, but at least they
got plenty of hilarious memes out of it.
"Hey, all you cool cats and kittens, it's Carole at Big Cat Rescue."
Was Carole Baskin, best known as Joe Exotic's arch-nemesis in the Netflix docuseries Tiger
King, a wise casting choice by Dancing With the Stars producers? We suppose the answer
depends on whether or not you believe the rumors that she killed her husband Don Lewis,
as Joe Exotic himself claimed many times. All we know for sure is that Joe was sent
to prison for plotting to have Carole killed, so we couldn't say.
Carole's controversial appearance only got more controversial when Dancing With the Stars
viewers were treated to ads paid for by the Lewis family asking for information about
Don's whereabouts and offering a $100,000 reward. In the clip, the family attorney asks,
"Do you know who did this or if Carole Baskin was involved?"
Woof. In reaction, Carole told Entertainment Tonight,
"I have not seen the ad. I am not at all surprised… It's just been a huge publicity stunt on their
part so what more could they possibly do than that?"
We suppose it would have been slightly more controversial if Dancing With the Stars had
cast Olivia Jade's mom, Lori Loughlin, to take part in the show. After all, she's the
one who actually went to prison for her part in the college admissions scandal. Loughlin
paid a third party to help her daughter cheat to get into a good college.
Still, Olivia's participation on Dancing With the Stars Season 30 generated plenty of "Are
you guys serious, right now?" takes on social media.
Olivia didn't help matters much in her intro when she said,
"I'm probably best known for being an influencer. But the last few years I've been, I guess
you could say, wrapped up in a scandal."
But Olivia does have a few backers in her corner, notably Dancing With the Stars host
Tyra Banks, who told Entertainment Tonight,
"I think Olivia is so brave. I think people don't know her, they know what happened to
her."
According to Banks, Olivia has said that she had no idea what was going on with the college
admissions thing, and it's been very hurtful to her. Banks also added,
"She is having to deal with that and I think she's coming to Dancing With the Stars to
be able to tell her story and show her vulnerability."
Dancing With the Stars almost always casts at least one athlete as part of the competition,
so in that sense, it wasn't totally surprising to see Floyd Mayweather Jr. make his ballroom
debut in Season 5. But in another, more troubling sense, it was a seriously weird call by the
Dancing With the Stars casting execs. The boxing superstar wasn't a beloved, family-friendly
athlete — he had a past history of domestic violence against women.
Per The Undefeated, Mayweather pleaded guilty to punching the mother of one of his children
in 2001, was accused and convicted of punching two other women in 2003, and stood trial but
was acquitted on charges of felony battery against his then-girlfriend in 2005. This
was all before he appeared on the show in 2007. And if he thought that he could redeem
himself on the dance floor, he was wrong. His pro partner Karina Smirnoff told TMZ Sports
that they, quote, "weren't that good."
So, considering all of this, was it a good idea to cast Mayweather on the show? We're
gonna go ahead and say probably not.
If you or someone you know is dealing with domestic abuse, you can call the National
Domestic Violence Hotline at 1−800−799−7233. You can also find more information, resources,
and support at their website.