Backstage At Dancing With The Stars

by Alyssa Ramos

Upon entering the back lot of CBS Studios, I realized that it probably would have been a good idea to Google this year’s Dancing With the Stars cast. The competitors were all walking around in their outfits with full hair and makeup, so I could obviously tell who was dancing and who wasn’t, so when I was introduced I just acted really excited to meet them, but couldn’t decipher if they were the celeb-dancer or the professional-dancer. Talk about a Hollywood oxymoron. I feel like I should know these things.

So why did I go see Dancing With the Stars if I don’t watch the show? I have no idea. Usually my excuse is “to blog about it”, so I’ll just stick to that. First I went backstage to the cute little dressing room area where they have those cute little make up stands like the ones you see in movies with circular lightbulbs around the mirror and chairs with names on them. I felt a little awkward at first with the male dancers stretching on the floor with their shirts off and abs out, but I definitely did not complain about it. I took a pic to prove I was there then moved along to find my seat in the audience.

Luckily they had crammed me in the row behind the row that had to be moved back so that the cameras could move back and forth in front of it, so every time we had to stand up then sit down to applaud, I would bump the poor old lady sitting next to me. Oh, so let’s talk about this applauding in the audience thing. It f*cking sucks. Yes, I enjoyed watching the dancers dance, especially since most of them are really hot, but I did not like being forced to stand up and clap for them every five minutes…for two hours. F that noise. And F the crowd pumper guy who kept yelling at us to do it.

This particular episode was called The Switch Up because they decided to switch all of the partners and make them start all over with new ones. The pre-dance interviews made it very obvious that the majority of the dance partners are definitely hooking up with each other. Besides Drew Carrey. Drew Carrey was just annoying to watch and even more annoying be around when he acted like a famous entitled prick at the after party. I can’t imagine anyone wanting to hook up with him besides star f*ckers. 

Anyway, my favorite performance was by Meryl Davis and the very sexy Valentin Chmerkovskiy, and not just because it was the last one. Since she’s a freaking Olympic ice skater, guess what she can also do on a dance floor? Really freaking cool spins. Valentin whirled her around like a Barbie doll, and it was absolutely jaw dropping. 

After the show we went to Candace Cameron Bure‘s birthday party at Riviera 31 in the Sofitel Hotel in West Hollywood with the rest of the cast except for, sadly, Valentin’s even sexier brother, Maksim Chmerkovskiy.