Nearly seven years after he and Sharna Burgess were dubbed the winners of Dancing With The Stars Season 27, Bobby Bones reveals how he “cheated” on the show.
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While appearing on Jason Tartick’s Trading Secrets podcast earlier this week, Bones spoke about his “unethical” approach to winning the dance competition’s famous Mirrorball trophy.
“I cheated in the way of, they give you a limited amount of time with your partner, like four hours a day, they say,” he said. “So, we would do our full work. I would record the session and then go by myself and rent a studio myself and train myself to, illegally, like spent time over.”
Bones has shared that he had to squeeze in extra Dancing With the Stars rehearsal time into his busy schedule.
“I was still doing the radio show every day, waking up at 3 a.m. in LA and touring, doing standup on the weekends,” he recalled. “And so, it was the hardest part of my life, as far as how difficult it was to just eat, stay hydrated, and work, and think in a normal manner.”
He then shared, “I started to dance, and I wasn’t in any way polarizing on the show other than I sucked. Because I didn’t run out and like, ‘I’m the best.’ I tried as hard as I could. And I got sevens, a couple of sixes, a couple of eights.”
Bobby Bones Said He Was “Very Transparent” About His Dancing Ability While Appearing on ‘Dancing With The Stars’
Despite having lower scores than some contestants who were eliminated, Bobby Bones further pointed out that he was “very transparent” on Dancing With the Stars about his dancing ability. He then called himself “very vulnerable.”
“And the fact that I was winning made it difficult on people who always watch the show,” he said.
Bones then recalled the producers telling him after the season ended that he had the “highest separation ever in the history of that show of votes.”
“[There’s] a very non-vocal majority. Normal people don’t complain on Instagram,” he pointed out. “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.”
Following Bones’ win, the show made changes to the voting system to help balance both judges’ scores and fan votes.
“They didn’t ever want me to happen again, because I was kicking good people off,” Bones added. “It wasn’t that I was winning. The hardcore fans of that show are very mean.”