‘Dancing With the Stars’ alum Bobby Bones say he ‘cheated’ to win competition

Although “Dancing With the Stars” Season 34 premieres tonight, one former show alum just shared a secret about his controversial Season 27 win: He cheated.

Radio personality Bobby Bones, who won the ABC dance competition series in 2018 with pro dancer Sharna Burgess, revealed that he may have overlooked the rules a little to snag some extra rehearsal time.

“I cheated in the way of, they give you a limited amount of time with your partner, like four hours a day, they say,” Bones revealed on the Sept. 15 episode of Jason Tartick’s “Trading Secrets” podcast. “So, we would do our full work. I would record the session and then go by myself and rent a studio myself and train myself to, illegally, like spent time over.”

Bones noted that he didn’t have an abundance of time to do this, as he was still waking up at 3 a.m. to record “The Bobby Bones Show,” in addition to performing stand-up and touring.

However, this news may rub some fans of the show the wrong way, given his controversial run on it. For context, Bones often earned poor scores from the judges, but continued to advance in the competition due to the overwhelming amount of votes he received from viewers at home. In fact, there were multiple instances where he received scores significantly lower than those of the dancers who were eliminated, prompting outrage.

Bones shared that he was “just as surprised as anybody” when he and Burgess won the season, but pointed out that he never claimed he was the best. “I didn’t run out and [say], like, ‘I’m the best.’ I tried as hard as I could and I got sevens, a couple sixes. A couple eights.’”

After Bones’ time on the show, “DWTS” changed its rules to more equally balance judges’ scores with audience votes. They also offered judges an opportunity to “save” contestants at risk of elimination.

“DWTS” Season 34 premieres tonight, Sept. 16, on ABC at 8 p.m. ET with an all-new cast. It can also be watched on Disney+.