Whitney Leavitt and Mark Ballas addressed their controversial “Dancing With the Stars” elimination during their appearance on the “Call Her Daddy” podcast Wednesday.
Leavitt and Ballas were shockingly eliminated in the semi-finals of Season 34 of “DWTS,” after receiving high scores from the judges all season. However, the “Secret Lives of Mormon Wives” star, 32, didn’t score well in the fan vote and she received intense backlash for having previous dance experience.
Leavitt laughed off the criticism when asked about it by “Call Your Daddy” host Alex Cooper. She noted that while she did have a modern dance degree from Brigham Young University, the style of dancing on “DWTS” was definitely foreign to her.
“Dancing with a partner in this capacity is so new to me, so different,” she insisted. “Of course, that background helped learning different techniques but this was still very new to me.”
She also said she stopped dancing after having her three kids.
“I’d like, go take a class maybe once in a while, but no I was not actively dancing,” she said.
Ballas pointed out that there hasn’t been a season of “DWTS” where there wasn’t a contestant with previous dancing experience, like past winners Nicole Scherzinger and Jordan Fisher. He said fans noticed it more with Leavitt because of her natural performance abilities.
“She is a dynamic performer and that’s something I can’t teach,” he said.
The conversation later took a dark turn when Ballas shared how the hate he and Leavitt received this season affected him. Leavitt was criticized after admitting on Season 3 of “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives” that she only agreed to come back to the reality show for a chance to audition for “DWTS.”
Ballas said that in all of his past seasons on “DWTS,” he had never seen fans actively band together to vote for every other couple just to force them out of the competition. He also got emotional while reading a hateful comment directed toward him online that called him “a c—nt,” “worthless” and wished he burned in hell.
Ballas said he didn’t sign up for that type of hate and only wanted to be on a fun dancing competition that brought people joy.
For her part, Leavitt said she was used to the hate but was more affected by seeing Ballas experience it for the first time. She gave a feisty response when Cooper asked if she had a message for her haters.
“I don’t know because what I would want to say is, ‘F—k you,’” she said as she and Ballas laughed.
As Leavitt was indisputably one of the best dancers, technique-wise, in the competition, plenty of fans were disappointed when she and Ballas didn’t get to perform their freestyle dance — one of the most anticipated performances all season long due to its anything-goes nature — in the finals.
The podcast and ABC actually built a set for the two to perform what would have been their freestyle dance, and they performed a dazzling routine to Frank Sinatra’s “My Way.”
Leavitt appeared in a showgirl costume before stripping down to a bedazzled long-sleeved leotard. At one point, she smeared red lipstick on her face during the dramatic dance.
The performance ended with a message reading, “Social media is bad for your health.”
Robert Irwin ended up winning the Mirrorball Trophy on Tuesday with his partner, Witney Carson, after an epic three-hour finale. Irwin — a frontrunner all season long — praised his older sister, Bindi Irwin, who won the Mirrorball Trophy in 2015 with her partner, Derek Hough.
“To follow in those footsteps and to do the same has meant everything to me,” the 21-year-old Australian conservationist told People after the show’s finale. “This has absolutely changed my life.”
Robert told the outlet Bindi’s win a decade ago was special because it allowed their family to inform the public about their conservation work, charity and the Australia Zoo and Wildlife Warriors.
“It’s about making the world a better place. And when I watched her lift that Mirrorball, I saw her lifting that message,” he said.
