Dancing with the Stars Season 35 premiered on Tuesday night, as the male celebrities entered the ballroom for their first performances. Fans are now reacting to the first elimination of the season — Connor Leavitt and his partner, The Next Pro winner Adele Zaikman.
DWTS Fans React to Adele Zaikman’s Elimination
During Tuesday night’s DWTS Season 35 premiere, The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives star Conner Leavitt danced a salsa with his professional partner Adele Zaikman, who recently won the spin-off show DWTS: The Next Pro.
The couple received a total score of 12 out of 30 from the judges, putting them toward the bottom of the leaderboard. At the end of the night, they were eliminated. The elimination of the show’s newest pro on the first night of the competition got fans on Reddit talking.
After the show, a user posted a thread titled, “Unpopular Opinion: Adele is not fully ready to be a pro.” They argued that Zaikman’s choreography for Leavitt was “weak.” As of this writing, the post has over 900 upvotes.
Fans in the comments had varying opinions on the matter, with one user saying that Zaikman appeared “visibly nervous” for her debut on the show and arguing that The Next Pro “did not adequately prepare the contestants for this work.”
A number of Reddit commenters argued that Adele Zaikman should not be blamed for Conner Leavitt’s elimination on Tuesday night. One of the top comments on the thread suggests that Leavitt “was cast to be an early out,” adding, “The only way to get around it is to be a good dancer, which he isn’t.”
Other users pointed out that many pros have had difficult first seasons in the past, and it takes most of them more time to find their footing. Another commenter argued that since Zaikman will continue to appear in group dances, “she’ll have most of a season to get acclimated.”
What do you think about Leavitt and Zaikman’s elimination in the DWTS Season 35 premiere? Let us know in the comments below.
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Jill O'Rourke Jill O’Rourke is a contributor at Talent Recap, writing news stories and recaps for shows like ‘AGT,’ ‘The Voice,’ and ‘American Idol.’ She graduated from the University of Georgia with a degree in English and Film Studies, and has been writing about pop culture since 2012, with previous bylines at Crushable and A Plus. Jill spends her free time binge-watching sitcoms and daydreaming about life as a hobbit
