6 Things We Learned From the 'Dancing With the Stars' Paley Center Panel
In honor of the 10th anniversary of Dancing With the Stars, and just days before the 20th mirrorball trophy winner is set to be crowned, some of the most famous faces from the ABC celebrity ballroom competition gathered at the Paley Center in Los Angeles to reminisce about a decade of sequins, spray tans, and sambas.
DWTS executive producer Rob Wade and co-host Erin Andrews were joined by longtime judge Bruno Tonioli, mirrorball-winning pro dancers Tony Dovolani and Kym Johnson, and DWTS alums Candace Cameron Bure (Season 18) and Alfonso Ribeiro (Season 19 winner) for the sit down, which was moderated by George Pennacchio.
Read on for highlights.
Tony Dovolani has a secret for dealing with difficult partners: Pro dancer Dovolani, whose celeb partners have included Wendy Williams, NeNe Leakes, and Kate Gosselin, says he starts out by “praying” before he finds out who his partner will be each season. “And when I find out, good thing the cameras are rolling because sometimes you want to run away,” he said with a laugh. “I’ve had some challenges, that’s for sure. I do go to my therapist right after the show.” While he wouldn’t name names, Dovolani later joked that “whoever fails the psych evaluation” gets to be his partner.
Alfonso Ribeiro had mixed feelings about resurrecting The Carlton Dance for DWTS: Fresh Prince of Bel-Air alum Ribeiro revealed that after his ‘90s sitcom ended, he had a “negative relationship” with the dance he made famous, and he hesitated to go back 20 years to bring it to DWTS. Ribeiro ultimately decided to do it as a thank you to his fans, but he was injured while performing the routine. As for his on-camera breakdown after his injury, Ribeiro explained he was crying due to a combination of many things: “I am in incredible pain,” he said. “I was ashamed of myself, because I was not able to deliver the performance that I wanted to be able to deliver at that point in the competition.”
Candace Cameron Bure dreaded dancing on the DWTS stage: While she made it to the finals on the 18th season of the show, landing in third place, Cameron Bure initially just hoped to make it to the halfway point of the competition. But the Full House star struggled with the performances on the live DWTS stage. “I was loving every minute of it at the rehearsals, but that darn stage, I’d get out on the live stage and I was disoriented and I couldn’t find my place and it just felt completely different than at the rehearsal studio,” she revealed. “So much so that I wanted to quit every day, I wanted to throw up before every show.”
Erin Andrews tried to back out of Season 10 of the show: Before she was the show’s co-host, Andrews was a DWTS competitor, partnered with Maksim Chmerkovskiy in Season 10, but the sportscaster revealed that she signed on to the show before her headline-making stalker incident. “And then everything blew up and I told the show, ‘No, I don’t want to be a part of this, it’s going to look like I’m just doing it for attention,’” she said. Andrews credited her former ESPN colleagues for convincing her to do the show, and now says: “It gave me my smile again.”
The contestants don’t see their pre-dance packages until the live show: Dovolani explained that those weekly rehearsal recap packages that play before each couple’s dance aren’t seen by the contestants until the live show, while Ribeiro advised “Do not look at your package,” unless you want to have the worst dance week of the season. When EP Rob Wade was called out by an audience member for repeatedly replaying an unflattering clip of Nastia Liukin getting snippy with the camera crew the week before her surprising elimination (her partner, Derek Hough even wrote about it his blog), Wade defended the clip as “a really compelling piece of television,” adding that he didn’t think the negative piece affected the couple’s votes.
The door is always open for the pro dancers: With 20 seasons under its belt and a renewal for Season 21 already set, Wade said the show feels like its experiencing a renaissance. “I feel very positive of the future of the show,” he said. “I think it has a vigor, a heart, and I think it has a soul, which means we have got many seasons left.” The showrunner also revealed he’d welcome back any of the pro dancers who’ve left the show, like Cheryl Burke and Tristan MacManus. “We are a family. We don’t close our doors on anyone,” he said.
The two-part Dancing With the Stars finale airs Monday, May 18 at 8 p.m. and Tuesday, May 19 at 9 p.m. on ABC.
