Bobby Bones has a hot take on Hilaria Baldwin‘s surprise Dancing With the Stars elimination.
“I was reading about Hilaria Baldwin saying she was bullied off of Dancing With the Stars,” Bones began a Monday, October 13, TikTok video. “As somebody who was treated like crap by the hardcore fans of the show, yeah, bullying happens. But you don’t get bullied off the show. You get kicked off the show because nobody voted for you, or you didn’t get scores.”
Noting that Baldwin “was a great dancer” and “came in with a ton of dance experience,” Bones claimed that she was eliminated “because people didn’t like you.”
He explained, “I got, again, bullied like crazy, but people liked me, so I won the show. So, that’s bull crap. Although that’s the meanest fan base of anything ever — Dancing With the Stars, the hardcore fans. People that vote and love the show and have a good time, you guys are cool. But the hardcores? Bad people.”
Despite scoring near the top or in the middle of the leaderboard all season, Baldwin and her pro partner, Gleb Savchenko, were sent home during the October 7 Disney Night episode. In an interview with Us Weekly published on Monday, Baldwin blamed her early exit on social media “mean girls” who voted “for all the other couples except us.”
@mrbobbybonesDancing …..♬ original sound – Mrbobbybones
“Very coordinated, very strategic bullying,” she also said during a Friday, October 10, Instagram Live, per the outlet. “And as I feel the darkness that undoubtedly brings to me, I always want to remember that my life belongs to the whole community and I want to leave a lasting mark of courage to speak up against what is simply wrong.”
Baldwin also told Us Weekly that she has nothing but “wonderful things” to say about dancing on the ABC competition series. “There’s more good people than bad people. And I just want one day that people can just see me and stop, like, the crazy stuff,” she added.
Bones is no stranger to facing DWTS controversy. Fan votes propelled the radio personality and his pro partner, Sharna Burgess, to win Season 27 in 2018, despite receiving lower scores than the other finalists throughout the competition. Changes to the voting system were made after his win, including the introduction of the Judges’ Save, which was removed ahead of Season 32 in 2023.
Last month, Bones admitted that he “cheated” to win DWTS, revealing on Jason Tartick‘s Trading Secrets podcast he would “illegally” practice his dances in another studio after his allocated “four hours a day” with Burgess were up.
“People like traditional dancers. You ain’t gonna like me because I have no idea what I’m doing. I was very transparent about that on the show. Very vulnerable, like, ‘Guys, I’m clueless,’” Bones said. “And the fact that I was winning made it difficult on people who had always watched the show.”
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After his win, Bones said he was told by producers that he had the “highest separation ever in the history of that show of votes.” He shared, “I think the quote from one of the executives was, ‘I could have peed on stage in my final dance and won.’ But they never told me that.”
Dancing With the Stars, Season 34, Tuesdays, 8/7c, ABC and Disney+ (Streaming Next Day on Hulu)
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