Former DWTS Pro Admits ‘Huge Crush’ on Partner

Heavy/ABC Ashly Costa once had a "huge crush" on Joey McIntyre.

Former “Dancing With the Stars” pro Ashly Costa (nee DelGrosso) first joined the show on season 1. That very first season, Costa was partnered with New Kids on the Block band member, Joey McIntyre.

On the June 24 episode of the “Sex, Lies, and Spray Tans” podcast, Costa discussed her relationship with McIntyre. And she admitted that she once had a major crush on him.

“I had a huge crush on him in the 80s,” Costa told podcast host Cheryl Burke. “He was like, he was New Kids on the Block. I mean, he was the one,” she continued, adding that she was “dying” when she first met him.

“I remember being extremely nervous, but then when I did meet him, the last, like, the second thought was, oh, he’s just as normal as I am. Like, we put these celebrities on such a pedestal that when you do actually meet them,” she explained.

Ashly Costa Said She & Joey McIntyre Never Hooked Up

When Burke asked if she and McIntyre ever had “a thing,” Costa was quick to say no.

“Joey was the most incredible first partner and he really did let me, he opened up that world to me. I had no clue because the dance world is so, the competitive ballroom world is so different than television,” Costa said during a different part of the podcast.

Costa also said that she viewed McIntyre as an “older brother” and that there wasn’t anything romantic between them because he was “already married to Barrett.” Mcintyre and Barrett Williams married in August 2003. After they tied the knot, they went on to welcome three children, Griffin in 2007, Rhys in 2009, and Kira in 2011.

Costa ended up finding love with a field producer from the show and she married him about a year later. These days, she is a mom of five kids.

Quite a Few People Have Experienced Crushes on DWTS

It’s no secret that people fall in love on “Dancing With the Stars.” And while things weren’t meant to pan out between Costa and McIntyre, there are plenty of other love stories to go around.

For example, season 19 competitor Bethany Mota admitted that she had a crush on Derek Hough while they were on the show together.

“I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t. I feel like it’s so natural to, like, I think Derek, even Mark, and like, even the other folks, it’s like, you kind of develop a little bit of a crush. Like I absolutely, absolutely did,” Mota admitted on the June 17 episode of the “Sex, Lies, and Spray Tans” podcast.

Then, on the May 27 episode of the “Sex, Lies, and Spray Tans” podcast, Aiden Turner said that he had a thing for his pro partner, Edyta Śliwińska..

“She made me very nervous. The legs, the hair,” Turner told podcast host Cheryl Burke of his first impressions of Śliwińska. “Very distracting. I had a really big crush,” the “All My Children” actor said.

“When you’re physically in someone else’s, like you’re right there, you can kind of smell what they had for breakfast, you know, every day, you know, you’re bound to have a feeling, it’s just natural,” he told Burke.

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