Fans Locked Out: ‘Dancing With The Stars’ Voting Crashes Opening Night
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Season 35 of Dancing With The Stars premiered on Tuesday, September 15, but not without its challenges.
The two-night premiere kicked off with the male celebrities performing Tuesday and the female celebrities scheduled to perform on Wednesday (September 16).
After just the second performance, chaos ensued and changed the course of the competition for the rest of the evening.
Julianne Hough Announced Online Voting Was Down
TV personality Tyler Cameron was the second celebrity to perform and after his tango, he and partner Sharna Burgess came up to the Skybox to get their scores. After they did, co-host Julianne Hough announced a major update to the voting system for the night.
“A quick update for everyone who is voting at home. This is coming through live right now: Voting on ABC[.com] is currently down live. So please make sure that you guys are texting for everyone.”
Hough added, “We will keep you posted as the night goes on!”
Something like this had never happened before, so the visible reactions from the pros and contestants behind her were incredibly real and honestly, relatable.
Later in the show, host Alfonso Ribeiro announced that they were “still having online voting issues,” but assured fans that text voting was still working.
“For tonight and tonight only, we are throwing out online votes,” he said. “So text only tonight.”
“Did we break it with the voting? This is kind of rad!” Hough asked, while Ribeiro added, “We’re breaking stuff around here.”
Despite the snafu, the evening otherwise went off without a hitch and text only voting seemed to work, despite some pushback from international fans who were not able to text in.
Watch Julianne’s announcement below.
One Couple Was Eliminated From Dancing With The Stars
For the first time in a number of years, Dancing With The Stars eliminated someone in the very first episode. They will do the same on Wednesday night with the female celebrities, starting the season off with a brutal double elimination.
Right before the elimination, Ribeiro announced that they had more than double the votes than in Season 34 premiere, even with half the cast performing and online voting down!
The last three remaining couples were Conner Leavitt, Guillermo Rodriguez, and Connor Wood. Based on judges scores and viewer votes, Leavitt and his partner, Adele, were eliminated.
A female celebrity will also go home on Wednesday night. Tune in to watch!
