In the world of live television, mistakes are bound to happen on occasion. Wardrobe malfunctions, bloopers, and errors with announcing winners have all happened before. However, hosting a live TV show is new for America’s Next Top Model alum Tyra Banks, who took over hosting duties on Dancing with the Stars following Tom Bergeron’s departure. Banks recently made an elimination mistake, but was quick to explain how it happened.
During the October 5 episode of Dancing with the Stars Season 29, Tyra Banks announced that Cheer coach Monica Aldama and her pro dancing partner, Val Chmerkovskiy, were safe from elimination. However, that wasn’t the case at all, and Banks had to scurry to call them both back out to the dance floor. While Aldama did wind up being saved from elimination, she and Chmerkovskiy were in the bottom two alongside Anne Heche and pro dancer Keo Mostepe. Banks took to her Instagram story in the aftermath to reveal the source of the mistake. In her words:
Oh my goodness, live TV is no joke! Dancing with the Stars, there was a lot of confusion on the stage tonight. I’ve been told that there was a technical difficulty and so the names that I had on the cards were the wrong names. But, you know, we power through. It’s really unfortunate that certain people thought they were safe and they weren’t, and had to get called back, and it’s a mess. But it’s my job as the host to keep the show going and to try to figure out, handle what’s going on behind the scenes, control room, all that. But we’re all a team, and we got through it together, and I can’t wait to see you guys next week. And let’s hope that there’s no technical difficulties like there were this week.
I can’t imagine what Monica Aldama was feeling at that moment, because to suddenly go from being safe to being in the bottom two sounds pretty intense. Tyra Banks is fully aware of how “unfortunate” her mistake was but that it’s her duty to carry on with the show despite the technical difficulties.
Multiple fans on social media compared Tyra Banks’ Dancing with the Stars mistake to that of Steve Harvey’s memorable pageant blunder. During the 2015 Miss Universe pageant, Harvey accidentally crowned Miss Colombia as the winner instead of Miss Philippines. I don’t think people have let him live it down since.
However, he wasn’t the only one. Due to a mix-up during the 2017 Oscars, La La Land was announced the Best Picture winner instead of Moonlight. Again, it’s live TV, and its unpredictable nature can lead to technical glitches and mistakes. I think Tyra Banks’ mistake would’ve been worse had Monica Aldama been eliminated but, luckily, she remained to dance another week.
Ultimately, the Dancing with the Stars host hopes there are no technical difficulties during next week’s live show, and I hope for the same. I’m sure that live TV has its learning curves, and it seems this one was it for her. While I doubt that Tyra Banks will have another major slip-up like this one anytime soon, it’s never a bad thing to hope for the best.
New episodes of Dancing with the Stars Season 29 air Mondays at 8 p.m. ET on ABC. For more on what to watch in the coming months, be sure to check out our 2020 fall TV premiere schedule.
