Goodbye Team Bolt, I for one will miss you!
Not only did the duo of Michael Bolton and Chelsie Hightower get a show season-low score of 12 out of a possible 30 last night on Dancing With the Stars and the boot off of the show tonight, but judge Bruno Tonioli, who gave Team Bolt a score of 3 out of a possible 10, called the singer’s jive the worst he’d ever seen on the show.
I spoke with Tonioli a week before the season started and he promised me he would be “extra mean” this season. Well, looks so far that he is keeping his promise.
When a celeb of the caliber of
Michael Bolton crawls out of a dog house to Elvis Presley’s
Hound Dog just to please his dancing partner, I think he should get a score of 5 as a baseline just for being a good sport. But the judges were not impressed, especially not Tonioli.
While giving his review, Tonioli rubbed his temples in pain and told Bolton: “It was a doggy mess of a jive. You did it all very, very, very badly. I think this is probably the worst Jive in 11 seasons. I hated it.” Even the usually grumpy judge Len Goodman felt that Tonioli was a little too harsh, coming to Team Bolt’s defense: “Okay, you hated it, but you should keep some of the comments to yourself really because it’s unfair!”
Judge Carrie Ann Inaba also came to the rescue of Bolton, before giving him a score of 4: “This is when it’s really tough to be a judge. I know you poured your heart and soul into that; you took such a huge risk. You’re Michael Bolton! You came out of there crawling to please your partner to do what you thought would help you get a good score. I so appreciate that and respect that.”
Here is what Michael Bolton said about the whole situation:
