Dancing With the Stars was extra spooky Tuesday night — and not just because it was Horror Movie Night.
The episode, which ended with a double elimination, featured Strictly Come Dancing’s Shirley Ballas as a guest judge. Shirley, a retired pro ballroom dancer known as “The Queen of Latin,” warned the ten remaining couples at the start of the episode that she wouldn’t be going easy on them — and she proved that with her first score of the night.
After Julia Stiles and her pro partner Ezra Sosa danced an Argentine Tango to “The Dogs Attack” by Jerry Goldsmith, Lionel Newman and National Philharmonic Orchestra, inspired by the film The Omen, Shirley launched into her critiques without holding back.
“First of all, I thought the conversation between the two of you was quite nice. But generally, overall, I didn’t find that there was much tracing on the floor,” the Dancing with the Stars: The Next Pro judge explained. She found the “gauchos too slow, not fast enough. I need sharper, controlled legs. Also posturally, it wasn’t quite in the right place for Argentine tango for me. But a good start.”
After the other judges — Derek Hough, Bruno Tonioli, and Carrie Ann Inaba — shared their feedback, the scores were given. Hough and Inaba gave the couple each a 7 out of 10. Tonioli awarded an 8.
Shirley, however, gave the couple a 4. Her score drew gasps from the live studio audience, and shocked reactions from both Stiles and Sosa. The Strictly judge also gave a 4 out of 10 to Tatyana Ali and her partner Jan Ravnik.
As the episode progressed, though, Shirley awarded higher scores, including a perfect 10 out of 10 for Harry Shum Jr. and Jenna Johnson’s Contemporary routine to “Toxic” by 2WEI, inspired by the film Saw. Shirley notably gave a 7 out of 10 to her son, Mark Ballas, and his celebrity partner Maura Higgins.
Viewers at home noticed the variation in Shirley’s scores and critiques and — just like in her feedback for the ten couples on the show — didn’t hold back online.
“Yea no, Shirley Ballas shouldn’t be allowed to have her scores included in the actual totals. 4’s?!! Absolutely not,” one person wrote on X.
“Shirley Ballas being like 'hey so you need to do this and this and this and this' followed by the other judges being all lighthearted is so funny, like it's SCARILY obvious how different the judging has become,” another wrote while someone agreed, “Oh hell I’m not afraid of many people but that lady Shirley Ballas is a spooky one.”
Others loved what Shirley brought to the judging panel.
“We need Shirley Ballas to be a judge full time. These new fans do not want their favs to actually be judged and would have lost their s*** if Len [Goodman] was still here,” one fan wrote on X.
“Damn.. Shirley Ballas didn’t come to play and I’m kind of here for it,” another said while someone else wrote, “Mrs. Shirley Ballas, I’m ready to campaign for you to be our permanent head judge.”
For her part, Shirley poked fun at the chatter with a Wednesday morning Instagram post of her scoring a 4 out of 10 captioned: “it was horror night after all.”
At the end of Tuesday night’s episode, Tyler Cameron and his pro partner Sharna Burgess and Savannah Bananas star Jackson Olson and his partner Emma Slater were eliminated.
Season 35 of Dancing With the Stars continues Tuesday night at 8 p.m. ET on ABC with streaming the next day on Hulu.
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