As “Dancing With the Stars” marked 20 years on the air Tuesday night, the show pulled out all the stops to bring back favorites and celebrate the nine remaining contestants.
Six professional dancers who started with the show in 2005 were featured in the opening number, choreographed by judge Derek Hough. Later in the show, nine former Mirror Ball champions came back to partner with the contestants during the relay dance. Even Tom Bergeron was there as a guest judge, literally jumping up and down on stage after pal Elaine Hendrix’s salsa and telling her, “That was really good!”
“I am thrilled to be here tonight,” Bergeron said at the beginning of the show, which he hosted for many years until clashing with management over the 2019 casting of former Trump press secretary Sean Spicer. “It’s such a rush.”
Julianne Hough and Alfonso Ribeiro carried the hosting duties on Tuesday, leaving Bergeron to deliver scores to the dancers.
One person who had never been on the show appeared too: Prince William showed up by video call to cheer on Robert Irwin as he worked on his foxtrot and to forgive him a bit for skipping out on the EarthShot Prize awards ceremony. Irwin had been scheduled to join William last week in Rio de Janeiro for the awards before his success on “DWTS” kept him busier than expected. William excused Irwin a bit, mind you, but not entirely.
“We’re missing you, Robert, while your twinkle-toes are going off elsewhere, I need you down here,” the likely future king said, connecting from Brazil where he was spending five days on a solo visit sans Catherine, Princess of Wales.
Irwin also got a visit from his sister Bindi — a former Mirror Ball champ — and her little daughter Grace during a week when one of his dances was a tribute to “Crocodile Hunter” Steve Irwin, Bindi and Robert’s conservationist father who died in 2006 after he was unexpectedly stabbed in the heart by a stingray. Bergeron noted that the last time he and Robert Irwin saw each other, 10 years prior, the boy was only 11 and watching his older sister perform.
“Every time that I step onto that floor, I represent my dad, his message and what he stood for,” Robert Irwin said Tuesday. “I just want to make him proud. He’s my hero.”
Topping it all off? Four 10s from the judges for Irwin and his partner Witney Carson, giving them the first perfect score of the season. More perfect scores would follow from Dylan Efron and Daniella Karagach, Alix Earle and Val Chmerkovskiy and Whitney Leavitt and Mark Ballas.
Irwin returned later in the show to dance a jive with Season 32 winner Xochitl Gomez, the Marvel star who took home the Mirror Ball in December 2023 when she was only 17 years old. The zookeeper and the actor set off sparks, winning the relay against Earle and Season 33 champ Joey Graziadei of “The Bachelor” fame.
“It was amazing,” judge Derek Hough said after the couples danced. “By the way, Robert and Xochitl, the chemistry, excuse me? Excuse me? It was so wonderful.”
“It’s really crazy. Honestly, we just had too much fun in rehearsals,” Irwin said as he and Gomez awaited results. “I kind of felt bad. Witney, you really had your work cut out for you.”
At 21 and 19, Irwin and Gomez might have their work cut out for them as well, should they wish to pursue that showmance.
Bergeron, meanwhile, appealed to the network at one point to “bring back the results show” and “let the whole country vote.”
Also, for the first time, “DWTS” delivered an In Memoriam segment honoring all the former contestants and one judge who have died between the show’s debut on June 1, 2005, and Tuesday night’s 20-year, 34-season celebration: Kirstie Alley (Season 12), Aaron Carter (Season 9), Shannen Doherty (Season 10), Valerie Harper (Season 17), Anne Heche (Season 29), Florence Henderson (Season 11), Jacoby Jones (Season 16), Suzanne Somers (Season 20), Jerry Springer (Season 3), Cloris Leachman (Season 7), Mary Wilson (Season 28), and finally Len Goodman, who died in 2023 after retiring from the program.
Goodman, who was always known as the toughest judge on the panel, got a special segment as well — one that left judge Bruno Tonioli near tears.
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