{"id":2122922,"date":"2025-10-29T16:25:05","date_gmt":"2025-10-29T16:25:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2122922"},"modified":"2025-10-29T16:25:05","modified_gmt":"2025-10-29T16:25:05","slug":"mark-ballas-whitney-leavitt-react-to-backlash-from-giveaway-controversy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/mark-ballas-whitney-leavitt-react-to-backlash-from-giveaway-controversy\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark Ballas & Whitney Leavitt React to Backlash From Giveaway Controversy"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Whitney Leavitt<\/a> and Mark Ballas<\/a> found themselves in the middle of a\u00a0Dancing With the Stars<\/a><\/em> controversy this week when they announced to fans that they were giving away tickets<\/a> to one of the competition\u2019s live shows, with flights and accommodations included.<\/p>\n

While many of their followers were excited about the prospect, others accused the dance partners of trying to politic and use the contest as bribery for votes on the show. Eventually, the pair announced that the giveaway was canceled because they legally weren\u2019t able to give away tickets in this manner.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a mishap,\u201d Leavitt told Us Weekly<\/a> after the Tuesday, October 28, episode<\/a>. \u201cIt\u2019s something we wanted to do for the fans and then we found out we couldn\u2019t. It is what it is. But we\u2019re going to find out something to do \u2026 to say how much we appreciate them.\u201d Ballas added that whatever fan appreciation method they come up with will have to wait until \u201cafter the season is over,\u201d though.<\/p>\n

The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives<\/a><\/em> star also insisted that the controversy \u201cwasn\u2019t playing on my mind at all\u201d when she danced this week. She and Ballas performed a jazz routine and scored a 37 out of 40 for the dance, with critiques from the judges that they were out of sync at times.<\/p>\n

Leavitt and Ballas first confirmed to fans that their ticket giveaway had been canceled on October 24. \u201cWe just got out of rehearsal, and we were both informed that we actually can\u2019t do a giveaway for the\u00a0Dancing with the Stars<\/em> live show,\u201d Leavitt said in a TikTok video. Ballas added, \u201cThis has come directly from ABC and BBC and is completely out of our hands.\u201d<\/p>\n

Leavitt is now one of eight contestants left vying for the Mirrorball Trophy after her\u00a0Mormon Wives<\/em> costar<\/a> Jennifer Affleck<\/a> was eliminated last night<\/a>. Next week, the pairs will all perform twice: an individual dance and a team dance.<\/p>\n

Dancing With the<\/strong><\/em> Stars<\/em>, Season 34, Tuesdays, 8\/7c, ABC<\/strong><\/p>\n

Read the latest entertainment news on TV Insider<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Whitney Leavitt and Mark Ballas found themselves in the middle of a\u00a0Dancing With the Stars controversy this week when they announced to fans that they were giving away tickets to one of the competition\u2019s live shows, with flights and accommodations included. While many of their followers were excited about the prospect, others accused the dance […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2122923,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[361629,41508,360667,344314,355055,359955],"class_list":["post-2122922","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-dance-partners","tag-dancing-with-the-stars","tag-leavitt","tag-mark-ballas","tag-mormon-wives","tag-whitney-leavitt"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Mark-Ballas-Whitney-Leavitt-React-to-Backlash-From-Giveaway.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2122922","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2122922"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2122922\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2122924,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2122922\/revisions\/2122924"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2122923"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2122922"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2122922"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2122922"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}