- Dancing With the Stars Season 34 premiered last night, and there was a flub.
- Judge Bruno Tonioli scored Whitney Leavitt an eight but held up a seven, leading to confusion during the live broadcast.
- Alfonso Ribeiro revealed how the scoring process works, and why Whitney was awarded an eight.
Season 34 of Dancing With the Stars kicked off last night, and there was a major error during the live show.
While scoring Secret Lives of Mormon Wives star Whitney Leavitt’s tango with Mark Balla to the HUNTR/X song “Golden,” judge Bruno Tonioli showed a score of seven on his paddle and yelled out “seven.” Indicating, you know, that Whitney got a score of seven. Buuuut, then the board on screen showed a score of eight.
ABC/EW
Julianne Hough ended up addressing the discrepancy, saying “Oh actually, just came through my ear right now, Bruno actually put in an eight, so we have to correct it. It’s a 15…We love live television!”
Alfonso Ribeiro then explained that judges lock in their scores before holding up their paddles, so Bruno’s original score of eigh was correct. “Just to clarify something, our judges key in their scores right after the dance and then they are locked regardless of which paddle they hold up,” he said. “We go with their locked score. So Bruno keyed in an 8, so Whitney’s total was 15.”
Bruno then joked, “Absolutely right, they should lock me up,” while Alfonso added “Yeah, we’ll lock you up after.”
Either way, Bruno clearly loved Whitney and Mark’s dance, telling them “The whole performance was incredible, elegant. A fantastic tango, as it should be. No messing around. Very, very, very high quality.”
Whitney and Mark tied for the highest score of the night thanks to their 15 points, alongside Robert Irwin and Witney Carson.
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