Dancing With The Stars alum Ally Brooke revealed on her podcast that she wanted to quit the long-running dance competition series leading up to the finale after she received backlash from viewers. The singer got her start in the entertainment industry when she auditioned for The X Factor in season 2. She was eliminated, but show creator Simon Cowell decided to bring her and four other contestants back as a girl group. They made it all the way to the finale but came in third place. Fifth Harmony went on to have great success, with their albums and singles skyrocketing up the charts. Camila Cabello left the group in 2016, and the four remaining members went their separate ways in 2018.
Brooke's Dancing With The Stars backlash stemmed from Dawson's Creek actor James Van Der Beek's elimination in the DWTS semifinals. That night, Brooke and her partner Sasha Farber took on the Viennese Waltz and the Charleston. The first performance received a score of 29, while the second earned them a perfect score. Van Der Beek, on the other hand, received the lowest overall scores of the night with his partner Emma Slater. Both duos ended up in the Bottom 2, and judges Carrie Ann Inaba, Len Goodman and Bruno Tonioli chose to save Brooke, which resulted in Van Der Beek's elimination.
During the most recent episode of her podcast The Ally Brooke Show, Brooke admitted that she wanted to quit Dancing With The Stars in-between Van Der Beek's elimination and the finale the following week. She noted that it wasn't fair to the actor considering the result occurred right after the DWTS contestant revealed even worse news, which was his wife's miscarriage. As she explained, "Him having the strength to still go on the show and perform and dance, to me it just did not make sense [for him to be in the Bottom 2]. I'm like, 'This does not make sense. There's no way. I know America is rooting for him and voted for him.'" But that didn't happen. The judges ended up saving Brooke and sending Van Der Beek home. She admitted, "I just remember after the show, I wanted to quit. I was done. It was such an emotional punching bag for me. You don't understand how much that can destroy someone. That destroyed me."
In that moment after the elimination, Brooke tried to get the DWTS judges to replace her with Van Der Beek. But host Tom Bergeron said that wasn't allowed. So she tried to make the switch happen behind-the-scenes after experiencing a tremendous backlash from viewers that put her in a "negative space." As she noted, "It was just so much negativity. And I just felt like, man, 'I can't take this.' And I really talked to my management and I talked to my parents about like, 'Mom and Dad, I don't want to be here. I want to give my spot to James.' And I ended up talking to him, saying, 'I want to give this to you.'" Their conversation helped her move out of that negative space, but Van Der Beek never re-entered the competition.
Clearly, the backlash that Brooke received from Dancing With The Stars viewers was strong enough to prevent her from winning or even being the runner-up. During the finale, she was the only contestant to receive perfect scores for both of her performances. It wasn't enough to push her over the edge to take home the Mirrorball Trophy, though. She landed in third place, ahead of Lauren Alaina but behind Kel Mitchell and Hannah Brown. The Bachelorette alum ended up winning season 28.
Source: Ally Brooke/YouTube