Lindsay Arnold hasn’t had the best time on Dancing with the Stars, but she has never given up.
After breaking out on So You Think You Can Dance in 2012, she moved on to Dancing with the Stars the next year as the second-youngest pro dancer in history.
The show then demoted her after that first year, which she said was a massive disappointment.
Lindsay Arnold talks DWTS demotion
In her first season on Dancing with the Stars, Lindsay Arnold partnered with boxer Victor Cruz.
She was only 19 when she picked up the role and she ended up finishing in 8th place, with an average score of 19.7.
“Dancing With the Stars called, and they were like, ‘We want you to do this season,’ so I pushed [college] back again,” Lindsay told Jason Tartick on his Trading Secrets podcast.
“I think after that first season of Dancing With the Stars, I realized, like, ‘Oh, maybe I don’t need to go to college right now.’ … It just fell into place.”
Then, DWTS demoted her to the dance troupe, which she attributed to Ortiz having a “difficult personality” that caused them to have a tough working relationship.
“Then, I was given the boot down to troupe for four or five seasons,” Lindsay said.
She did admit she wasn’t ready.
“I just was not ready. Honestly, that was probably one of the hardest parts of my career even though it’s such an incredible job; it’s an amazing job.”
Dancing with the Stars brought her back up as a pro in Season 21, where she finished in third place with Alek Skarlatos. She then finished no lower than fourth for the next five seasons, winning the Mirrorball trophy in Season 25 with Jordan Fisher.
“I know that I wasn’t quite ready. I needed to find out who I was, first of all,” Lindsay said.
She also said her salary was cut in half after her demotion and that troupe dancers put in more hours than the pros, calling it “a total pay cut.” She also said the total is not a “livable wage.”
Lindsay Arnold has worst finish in Season 30
Since coming back up, Lindsay Arnold only missed one season, when she was pregnant in Season 29.
She was back one season later and teamed with Bachelor star Matt James.
However, they finished with the lowest ranking of her career, in 12th place. That was even better than when she teamed with Sean Spicer in Season 28.
Lindsay openly believed that the judges had a vendetta against Matt James.
“They said nice things. They weren’t mean, but then we got 6’s. It was insane,” Lindsay said. “They were so blatantly underscoring Matt.”
She went on to say, “I’ve been around on this show for a long enough time to know when they’re just purposefully underscoring somebody for some sort of agenda that I’m not aware of.”
Dancing with the Stars is on hiatus. The dancing reality competition series will return to ABC in late 2022.
I quit watching the show because of tyra banks and so did some of my friends.. she acts as if the show is all about her and she uses it for her runway.. she needs to get over herself.