“I’m so sorry. This is live TV. I was reading my cards, but my cards were wrong.”
By now, you’ve probably heard that Tyra Banks is the new host of Dancing With the Stars. And last night’s elimination was slightly more dramatic than usual, after Tyra accidentally read out the wrong names when announcing the bottom two.
It all started when Tyra was revealing which contestants would be safe from elimination. She announced that Monica Aldama — the head coach on Netflix’s Cheer — would survive another week. Monica rejoiced and happily left the stage with her partner, Val.
Then…things got awkward.
With three teams left on the stage, Tyra announced that they were the week’s bottom two. The three couples looked around like, “…Huh???”
And after a painfully long silence, Tyra realized that a mistake had been made somewhere: “There’s actually been an error. I’m looking right now and we have three couples, so we need to clarify this. One second.”
“The bottom two couples are Anne and Keo, and Monica and Val. Please come back…Please have Monica come back,” she said, while cast members looked backstage for Monica. “There’s been an error in our control room but we’re making it happen. This is live TV, right? This is the craziness of live TV.”
After a long delay, the remaining safe couples awkwardly ran off the stage — and Monica Aldama returned, with a graceful smile on her face that would surely make Navarro Cheer proud.
“I’m so sorry. This is live TV. I was reading my cards, but my cards were wrong,” she explained.
She then asked the judges to decide whether to send Monica or Anne Heche home, adding: “And again, we apologize for this. This is live TV, and we’re all human.”
“This is like the Oscars [in 2017],” Derek Hough said, clearly stressed out.
In the end — spoiler alert — Anne Heche was sent home by the judges. After the show, Tyra took to Twitter to address the gaffe.
Wowzers. Live TV. Wrong name on cards. So challenging to deal with moments like these. But we power through.
And in an Instagram story, she admitted that “there was a lot of confusion on the stage tonight.”
“It’s really unfortunate that certain people thought they were safe and they weren’t, and had to get called back,” she said. “It’s a mess, but it’s my job as the host to keep the show going, and try to handle what’s going on behind the scenes, in the control room, all that.”
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