"Dancing With the Stars" pro Valentin Chmerkovskiy helped to bring Disney star Zendaya to first place in Monday night's finals, with the pair earning a perfect score of 60 points for their two dances.
Chmerkovskiy’s accomplishment was all the more impressive given that his dance partner had accidentally elbowed his right eye during Monday’s dress rehearsal, which caused some severe bleeding.
Arguably, an even sharper blow to the pro dancer was learning that due to some apparent technical glitch, fans weren’t able to cast their votes on ABC.com. ("Dancing" devotees could still vote by calling, texting and going to Facebook.com.)
At first, Chmerkovskiy didn’t believe it when TODAY.com broke the news to him about the voting snafu on the post-show press line.
“Are you serious?” he asked. “Who told you that?”
In fact, host Tom Bergeron announced the problem just before the live performance episode ended. After Chmerkovskiy got confirmation, he was understandably frustrated.
"That's bull----," he said just before heading to the hospital to get stitches. "Well, good luck to everybody.”
It’s difficult to say which star – Zendaya, Jacoby Jones, Kellie Pickler or Aly Raisman – will be most affected by this particular voting platform not being available.
“Honestly, it’s really out of my mind,” pro Derek Hough told TODAY.com.
Pickler added, “There’s nothing we can do about it."
As far as Hough was concerned, the satisfaction he feels over his and Picker’s freestyle dance, which also earned a perfect score and relied more on emotional content and less on bells and whistles, is better than winning the coveted trophy anyway.
“I know what (winning) feels like,” Hough candidly shared. “What we did (Monday night) was so special. It takes the pressure off. If we don’t win or whatever happens, no one can take away from us what we did.”
"Dancing With the Stars" will reveal the winner of the coveted mirror ball trophy Tuesday night during part two of the season finale, starting at 9 p.m. on ABC.