Tyra Banks Defends Herself Following Controversial Dancing With the Stars Moment: I Didn't Do Anything Wrong!
Paul Dailly
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Tyra Banks is speaking out following the controversial Dancing With the Stars elimination that aired earlier this week.
The episode found Banks telling Monica Aldama and Val Chmerkovskiy they were safe, before revealing they were actually in the bottom two.
Banks denied it was her own error and has said that she understands why the blame is being placed on her in a new interview with USA Today.
“The ending was correct. However, the journey was bumpy, based on some technical stuff," she told the outlet.
"But the world doesn’t see that. The world sees only me. They don’t know that there are computers and that there are technical people… They don’t hear the chaos in my ear and how I have to manage it and smooth it out.”
Given that the issue was down to a computer error and Tyra said the name that was given to her, she understands why fans are complaining because they don't see what happens behind the scenes.
“[Viewers] only see me, and so they say, ‘Tyra did something wrong.’ I didn’t do anything wrong, but to them I did. And that is the perception that, as a host, you have to live with,” she explained.
“There was a lot going wrong, and it is my job to not have everyone at home feel as frenetic as it actually is,” she continued, saying that there was a lot of chaos behind the scenes.
Banks said that she had a group call with her co-workers after the episode aired, adding that she was "taking it for the team" because she felt like people would be upset with the decision.
Carre Ann Inaba, a judge on the series rushed to Tyra's defense on The Talk earlier this week.
“Everyone is blaming Tyra on social media,” Carrie Ann said.
“It was not Tyra’s fault! She had the wrong names given to her at the beginning of the elimination round," she added.
"It was a technical error in the booth about counting the votes and who was actually the bottom two. I think Tyra did an amazing job handling a really intense live situation.”
Bruno Tonioli also defended the new host and Executive Producer in an interview with Parade.com.
“It was a discrepancy between what was printed and the actual [results]. There’s such a small difference between the points, and what was in the cards was different than what was being told to her in her earpiece,” he explained.
“So, she said quite rightly, ‘Something is wrong here.’ She took over control of the situation to correct a discrepancy. I thought she was fantastic because she took hold of the situation and corrected it,” he added.
Paul Dailly was an Associate Editor for TV Fanatic.Follow him on X.
