In the first elimination of Dancing With the Stars season 29, judges decided to send former professional basketball player Charles Oakley home. In a tense tiebreaker, the judges and audience said farewell to the first eliminated celebrity in the season. Tiger King's Carole Baskin and her partner, professional dancer Pasha Pashkov, were the other contestants in the final two.
Tuesday's episode had the judges and fans casting live votes to determine the contestants' final scores coming into the second week of the competition. A combination of DWTS judging scores from episodes one and two and live votes determine the rankings and outcomes for pro dancers and celebrities. At the end of the episode, host Tyra Banks announced that Baskin and Oakley were the two contestants at the bottom.
As Tyra broke down the contestants' final scores to the DWTS judges and audience, it was up to the judges to save one of the couples. People goes into detail about the chain of events at the end of the show, which led Oakley to be the first eliminated from Dancing with the Stars season 29. Ex-NBA Charles Oakley and his professional dance partner, Emma Slater, came out of the first episode with low scores. Carole Baskin, who is partnered with professional dancer Pasha Pashkov, also appeared to struggle with their moves. This put them last in the competition. Hopefully, Oakley enjoyed his time on the show, although that time was short. See him in a promo he posted to his Instagram below:
The dance that got Oakley and Slater sent home was the cha-cha, which garnered them a score of 15/30. Judges Bruno Tonioli, Carrie Ann Inaba, and Derek Hough started deliberating, and the vote was led to a tie. Inaba voted to save Baskin, Tonioli voted to save Oakley, and Hugh broke the tie, stating, "the couple I'm going to save is Carole and Pasha." It is not so far off to speculate that Baskin, whose footwork has not been up to par, was saved for the sake of ratings. Due to her appearance on the instant Netflix hit, Tiger King, and the juicy conspiracy theory surrounding her alleged involvement in the death of her ex-husband, Carole Baskin is a hot commodity.
DWTS Season 29, which received mixed reviews following the premiere, is slowly returning to its previous star status. As of September 25, the top of the pack is team Kaitlyn Bristowe and Artem Chigvintsev, who ended week 2 with the highest scores, despite Bristowe's ankle injury. Coming in tied are duo Justina Machado and Sasha Farber, with the same score of 42 out of 60, following their well-received foxtrot. In a close third, with a score of 41 out of 60, are Nev Schulman and Jenna Johnson with the cha-cha. However, it's still early in DWTS, so plenty of upsets could occur between now and the finale.
Source: People, Charles Oakley/Instagram