‘Dancing with the Stars’: Debating Dwight Howard’s elimination and who (if anyone) will go home in the semifinals
“It’s sad to see him go, but also kind of the right time based on who’s left in the competition and what their skill levels are,” argues Gold Derby editor Daniel Montgomery about the elimination of basketball player Dwight Howard from “Dancing with the Stars” at the end of the show’s “500th Episode” celebration. He discussed that ouster and debated who will be next to go with contributors Jeffrey Kare and Cordell Martin in this week’s slugfest. Watch it above.
Martin agrees: “I thought maybe he might have had a chance just based on him having the Argentine tango. I thought maybe that would have been a big crowd-pleaser to keep him safe another week. But just based on everyone stepping up their game this past week, it just seemed like it was his time.” Kare adds, “It really looked like Dwight’s days in the ballroom were numbered,” though “following Jenn Tran‘s shocking elimination from two weeks ago, I was afraid we were going to get another one in a row.”
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“DWTS” fans also felt it was Howard’s time to exit the stage. We asked our readers who really deserved to be sent home, and an overwhelming 84.68% said Howard was the right choice. Nobody else even polled in the double digits (scroll down to see our complete poll results). His exit leaves five semifinalists in the competition: Olympians Ilona Maher and Stephen Nedoroscik, “Bachelor” star Joey Graziadei, Disney star Chandler Kinney, and football player Danny Amendola. Which of them will be eliminated right before the finale?
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Montgomery thinks it’s “looking iffy” for Maher and Nedoroscik. “Unfortunately, I feel like it’s one of those two,” Martin concurs. “If they were to go with a shocker, maybe Chandler, but I just feel like optics-wise they probably wouldn’t entertain that. But you never know. I could see a case for Danny.” Kare also has “Ilona and Stephen as my top two predicted to get eliminated,” but he also brings up another possibility: “I can see a world where, surprisingly, no one goes home and all five of them enter into the finals.”
It would be unusual to have five celebs in the finale, but not unprecedented. In fact, it happened just last season, when the semifinals ended up being a surprise non-elimination round and Alyson Hannigan, Charity Lawson, Ariana Madix, Jason Mraz, and ultimate winner Xochitl Gomez all advanced to the finale episode. That was a major surprise when that happened last year, but if “DWTS” does it again, we’ll be ready for them.
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