Adele Zaikman is speaking out following her elimination on Dancing with the Stars last week.
The 24-year-old won Dancing with the Stars: The Next Pro and became a new pro dancer on season 35 of DWTS, paired with The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives‘ Conner Leavitt.
Unfortunately, they were the first couple eliminated of the season on last week’s “Premiere: Night One.”
Adele Zaikman addresses her DWTS elimination
While appearing on the Fire Chats: The Mindfire Pod podcast with Carrie Berk, Adele admitted that she’s not happy about being the first out, but she’s not sad.
“I feel like being eliminated, obviously, is not something I’m happy about,” the dancer said. “I’m sad about it. I’m sad that the journey was short. However, I do understand that this is a competition, and things can happen. Sometimes, people vote for you, sometimes they don’t.”
She also addressed the similar names for her partner, Conner L, and another celeb contestant, Connor Wood. With voting, viewers were urged to make sure to include the first letter of the two stars’ last names to differentiate who they were voting for.
There was also a voting issue that caused the online votes to not be counted, and only the text votes were tallied to find out who would be eliminated.
Adele said that “maybe the voting issue made it complicated,” but she’s just looking forward to the future and not dwelling on the past.
“There’s nothing I can do right now. I can’t turn back time. I can’t fix the voting system. I can’t do anything about it. It just is what it is, so I try to look forward.”
On the first night of the two-night DWTS premiere, Adele and Conner received the second lowest judges score, 12 out of 30, just ahead of Guillermo Rodriguez and Witney Carson with 10.
“Sometimes, people like your dancing, sometimes they like the routine, sometimes they like your celebrities, sometimes they don’t feel connected to any of it. Being eliminated is actually something I’m fine with,” Adele shared on the podcast.
“What hurts is the outside noise and the comments on social media,” she continued. “I feel like me even getting eliminated was not as painful in a way as what people have to say because people don’t even know me. You don’t even know my partner. You don’t know what we’ve been through. You don’t know our journey.”
If you missed it, see how Conner‘s wife, Whitney Leavitt, who competed on season 34, reacted to his elimination.
A second celebrity contestant was also eliminated from DWTS season 35 on night two of the premiere.
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