Danny Amendola Has ‘Breakout Performance’ on ‘DWTS’ Dedication Night
Disney/Eric McCandless Reading Time: 3 minutes
Dancing with the Stars Season 33 returned on Tuesday for Dedication Night, as the remaining nine celebrities danced to honor important people in their lives. At the end of the night, one couple was eliminated — and it wasn’t the couple with the lowest score.
Danny Amendola Has ‘Breakout Performance’ on DWTS
Former football player Danny Amendola has stayed around the middle of the leaderboard for the past few weeks, but this week’s performance showed he’s a serious contender for the Mirrorball trophy. Danny and his partner Witney Carson danced a Contemporary to “Unsteady (Erich Lee Gravity Remix)” by X Ambassadors.
The routine was a tribute to his late college football coach, Mike Leach, whom Danny called “an instrumental character in my life and my career.” The judges (including this week’s guest judge Mark Ballas) were wowed by Danny’s performance.
Carrie Ann Inaba called it a “breakthrough,” while Ballas agreed that it was Danny’s “breakout performance” of the season. The panel gave him a total score of 36 out of 40, tying him with Joey Graziadei at the top of the leaderboard.
Joey and his partner Jenna Johnson danced a Viennese Waltz to “Lose Control” by Teddy Swims, dedicated to Joey’s fiancée, Kelsey Anderson. Bruno Tonioli called Joey the “king of the ballroom.” He also earned a score of 36 out of 40 from the judges.
Brooks Nader, Gleb Savchenko Were Eliminated
Tuesday night’s show ended with an elimination, as one couple had to go home. Dwight Howard and his partner Daniella Karagach were at the bottom of the leaderboard, with a score of 29 out of 40. However, they weren’t the eliminated couple.
Instead, after taking into consideration the judges’ scores and the votes from viewers at home, Brooks Nader and her partner Gleb Savchenko were eliminated from the competition. Brooks and Gleb earned a score of 32 for their Salsa to “Mi Gente” by J Balvin & Willy William, tying with four other couples.
Chandler Kinney and Brandon Armstrong, Phaedra Parks and Val Chmerkovskiy, Ilona Maher and Alan Bersten, and Jenn Tran and Sasha Farber all received a total score of 32 out of 40 for their dances on Tuesday night. But the votes didn’t save Brooks and Gleb from elimination.
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Derek Hough, Hayley Erbert Perform Emotional Dance
Tuesday’s episode also featured an emotional performance from judge Derek Hough and his wife Hayley Erbert, who danced to “Beautiful Things” by Benson Boone. This was Erbert’s first time performing in the ballroom since being hospitalized with a cranial hematoma last December.
Before the performance, Hough shared the story of Erbert’s hospitalization while they were on tour together. The dancer recalled that Erbert was “on the side of the stage having full seizures and essentially dying” during one of their shows. He said he felt “pure fear.”
Hough shared that Erbert’s doctor at the hospital told him that she “might not make it,” and that if she did, “she won’t be the same person.” He was in tears as he called his wife “my beautiful miracle.”
According to Erbert, doctors told her she might not walk again. However, she said she “was determined to push myself to the limit to be able to dance again.” Still, she admitted that it wasn’t an easy journey. Erbert called Hough “my rock throughout it all.”
