The latest season of Dancing with the Stars is over, and while fans are celebrating Robert Irwin's win, a lot of the season was focused on The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives star Whitney Leavitt. Her competition was a major focus of social media, and now she’s responding to the hate and not holding back.
Leavitt and her dance partner, Mark Ballas, appeared on the latest episode of the Call Her Daddy podcast to discuss their competition, which ended in the semifinals after they received the fewest votes from fans despite high scores from the judges. The vote is being connected to a significant amount of online hate that the pair received, including one vicious post that Ballas read on the show. He said…
This one that I got like randomly. This is after one of our dances: ‘Are you that cheap of a cunt to rot and do this? Damn, you’re special. You’re completely worthless, and I hope you fucking burn in hell one day.’ That’s just one of them.
The apparent online hate against Whitney Leavitt seemed to come from a variety of sources. Some were critical of the fact that she had previous dance experience, though, as Ballas said, that has been the case for many Dancing with the Stars contestants over the years. Others were critical of the fact that Leavitt fully admitted to only returning to the third season of The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives as part of a bid to make it on the competition series.
Being a reality TV star, Whitney Leaviutt admitted that online backlash wasn’t anything particularly new for her. However, the whole Dancing with the Stars experience was different because she was seeing the hate hit somebody else who hadn’t had to deal with it previously. She said…
I’ve experienced it for years but I think what was a little bit triggering was watching someone experience that for the first time. For what? It made no sense to me. And then I also at times felt like it was my fault.
While the Dancing with the Stars voting system is designed to have fans vote for their favorite contestants, there was some evidence of fans getting together online to vote for anybody but Leavitt and Ballas, essentially using a loophole to vote them off the show rather than simply trying to keep favorites on. Even fellow contestant Andy Ruchter thought the elimination was crazy. To those people, Leavitt did not hold back, saying simply….
I don’t know because what I would want to say is, ‘Fuck you.’
It’s clear that the entire experience was rough for both Leavitt and Ballas, and one hopes that online hate like what Ballas received is entirely uncalled for. Hopefully, the Dancing with the Stars experience was, on balance, a positive for them, as it should be for everybody.