‘Dancing With the Stars’: Brandon Armstrong Talks Being in Jeopardy, Disney Night Elimination
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On past “Disney” nights on Dancing with the Stars, producers have opted to skip eliminating anyone from the competition because why eliminate anyone on such a magical evening? Alas, that wasn’t the case this year. Even though they weren’t the lowest scoring duo of the night, NFL running back Adrian Peterson and pro partner Britt Stewart were sent home after earning 21 points for doing a Viennese Waltz to Baby Mine from Dumbo.
Two other couples were in jeopardy — Barry Williams (The Brady Bunch) and Peta Murgatroyd, who earned 18 points after making a misstep during their jazz, and, surprisingly, YouTuber Lele Pons and Brandon Armstrong, who scored 22 points for their Rumba.
Two out of the last three couples not called safe aren’t necessarily in the bottom two, but they don’t know for certain whether they are or not. “It’s never, ever easy to be in that position,” Armstrong told TV Insider on the post-show red carpet. “Obviously, we don’t know who’s really down there. We’ll never know. I hope it’s not us because it’s no fun standing up there.”
Why do producers make couples that aren’t always in danger sweat it out like that? “I think it adds another layer of drama or suspense to the show,” Armstrong muses. “You never know. I just hope that people are voting for us. We hope that our scores get higher and higher so that we can stay around as long as we can.”
Disney/Eric McCandless
Armstrong may not know his and Pons’s actual ranking in terms of viewer votes but he does plan on taking the judges’ comments to heart and working on what he can control, “like always getting our legs straight as possible,” he says.
As grateful as he is that and Pons are coming back for next week’s Most Memorable Year-themed night, he laments that Peterson and Stewart were ejected. “It sucks at the end of every episode that someone’s got to go,” he says. “We get close to these people, and they work so hard.”
Peterson and Stewart got to walk out of the ballroom with their heads held high given the positive comments they received from the judges for their dance on Disney night. “I don’t know if anything softens the blow of going home,” offers Armstrong, who concedes that it’s best “to go down swinging. I’d rather go down swinging.”
After performing a Quick Step last week to I Want You Back by the Jackson 5, Peterson and Stewart earned 21 points, the same score they got this week. However, on Motown week, there were four judges compared to this week’s three. The duo was improving.
“I’m proud of Adrian [and his] Dancing With the Stars journey because he’s showing improvement,” Stewart said. “Everybody knows that he’s a pro football player with zero dance experience. We still got low scores from the judges, but I was very pleased that they gave constructive criticism.”
Dancing With the Stars, Tuesdays, 8/7c, ABC and Disney+
