It's only the third week of "Dancing With the Stars" season 13, and already we have a surprising elimination.
Proving once again that the show is about fan bases and not about actual dancing ability, voters sent "The Hills" star Kristin Cavallari home despite the respectable 24 points she earned from the judges for her sassy samba on Monday. The score landed her in the middle of the leaderboard, but miles ahead of Chaz Bono's 18 points for a rumba that was more standing than dancing.
"This is truly crazy," griped head judge Len Goodman (aka Mr. Scrunchy Face) when Kristin and pro partner Mark Ballas, and soccer star Hope Solo and pro Maks Chmerkovskiy were left standing under the spotlights of shame. "My expectations were that these two couples would be fighting for the finals, and maybe one of them going home with the mirror ball."
OK, maybe having them in the finals is a bit of a stretch, but both certainly deserved to stick around for a while longer. Was Kristin's samba flawless? Hardly. But she shook her groove thang as best as she could, while Hope went out on a limb and tried for a sexy rather than athletic number. (She received a generous 24 for the effort.) But the point is that both ladies actually danced.
Chaz? Chaz barely moved. The author and activist struck a pose here and there, but that's not dancing. Can he actually dance? Perhaps. His first effort in week one wasn't bad at all! But the painful knee issues seem to be taking a major toll on his performances and are landing him at the bottom of the scoreboard.
Fans of the show aren't exactly pleased with the latest results either. "Well, that was shocking ... and wrong," reader Debra Chandler wrote on our Facebook page after the elimination.
But there is an upside of sorts to keeping Chaz for another week. As he pointed out himself, his mom, Cher, will be in the ballroom to cheer him on next week. Perhaps he'll do better after a little bit of rest for his knees and with someone important in his life being in the room to root for him.
If doesn't improve, "Dancing" fans, please cut his aching knees some slack lest he permanently injure himself.
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Anna Chan is the TV editor for TODAY.com. Join her and fellow "Dancing" writer Ree Hines on Tuesdays at 3:30 p.m. ET to gab about the performance shows. Sign up for a reminder!