Heavy/ABC Kyle Massey suggests the DWTS finale was rigged on his season.
Season 11 “Dancing With the Stars” alum Kyle Massey shared some details about what happened after a frontrunner had a “mishap” on his season. On the May 6 episode of the “Sex, Lies, and Spray Tans” podcast, host Cheryl Burke asked Massey if he felt the show was “rigged.”
“All I’m going to say is that in my season, you know, one of the other contestants had a mishap in,” Massey said, referring to something that happened during Jennifer Grey’s finale performance.
He went on to explain that his mom watched the show on the East coast — which aired live — and saw the “mishap” happen. However, when the show aired three hours later on the West coast, the “mishap” was removed.
“It was edited out, perfect tens,” Massey said. When he was asked to elaborate on what happened during Grey’s dance, he said that she had tripped. “It was crazy. I just couldn’t believe that they did that. You know, that was my first flag as like, OK,” he added of the edit.
Despite the mistake, Grey and her partner Derek Hough went on to win the Mirrorball Trophy.
Here’s what you need to know:
Kyle Massey & Lacey Schwimmer Finished the Season in 2nd Place
Massey competed on season 11 alongside ballroom pro Lacey Schwimmer. The two made it all the way to the finals, ultimately losing to Grey and Hough.
Fans absolutely loved the Massey-Schwimmer pairing and have expressed such on social media, even years later.
“These two were so great. It’s a shame they never got a perfect score,” one fan commented on a Reddit thread about Massey and Schwimmer’s freestyle.
“These two were a very iconic pairing! We were very close to getting Kyle back again on the All-Stars season,” someone else wrote.
Interestingly, Schwimmer previously said that she wasn’t even supposed to compete on season 11.
“I was not supposed to be his partner. In fact, I do believe he was supposed to go to Chelsie Hightower, if I’m not mistaken. Something happened… and they shifted people around last second. And then I got a call,” the dancer said on an October 2023 episode of “Sex, Lies, and Spray Tans.”
Kyle Massey Doesn’t Have any Hard Feelings Against Jennifer Grey or Derek Hough
Despite claims that DWTS producers edited Grey’s finale dance before it aired on the West coast, Massey said that she and Hough deserved to win.
“At the end of the day, like I am proud of Jennifer and Derek,” he told Burke on her podcast. “I would never take anything away from them. They deserved that dub and they got it,” he added.
Meanwhile, Burke was sure to let Massey know that he was great on his season, too.
“Honestly, Kyle, I thought you killed it. Like I’ve had Lacey on here a few times and, mind you, I haven’t seen her in just as long as I haven’t seen you in person, but she, she said that out of all her partners, obviously, she’s the one that you, you guys keep in touch the most,” she told him.
READ NEXT: DWTS Alum Says Tony Dovolani Would Have ‘Killed’ Her Husband