‘Dancing With the Stars’ Judges Get Emotional Over a Dance ‘Len Goodman Would Have Loved’

It was an emotional evening on Dancing With the Stars. The night closed out with a moving performance from contestant Xochitl Gomez and her partner, Val Chmerkovskiy, who danced the waltz to Lady Gaga’s rendition of “La Vie En Rose” from A Star Is Born. 

After the emotional dance which had Gomez herself in tears, judge Derek Hough was visibly moved, even getting choked up at one point. 

“You know, I was thinking about how important this season is, what the gravity of the season means to win this season,” Hough said on Tuesday’s show. “It’s the first time we have the Len Goodman Trophy. And I’ll tell you right now, Len would have loved that dance. That was absolutely perfect. Perfect.”

Len Goodman was a longtime, beloved judge on the hit dance competition show. He died in April at the age of 78. The coveted mirrorball trophy has since been renamed to be the Len Goodman Mirrorball Trophy. 

Judge Carrie Ann Inaba was caught off-guard when host Alfonso Ribeiro asked for her score, saying, “I’m sorry, I’m a little taken aback.” 

Bruno Tonioli declared that Gomez “became the rose in front of our eyes” and added, “You have an amazing future in front of you.”

When Inaba spoke again, she was in tears, saying, “You really touched my heart. You just did. That was — it transported me to another world. I just felt like I never wanted it to end. That’s so rare. After 32 seasons of watching dances and dances, that was stunning.” 

The dance earned the pair their second perfect score of the night, cementing them as the frontrunners heading into the finals next week. And despite being in the bottom two, in a twist, it was announced that all five couples would be going to the finals for the first time. 

ET’s Denny Directo spoke with Gomez after the performance where she talked about what was going through her head when she took to the stage for the waltz. 

“It’s intense,” she admitted to ET. “I’ve never been in the bottom before and being there was really scary. Especially because I want to have my full experience here. I’ve enjoyed every single little bit of it. And to think that my time could be cut short, even just by a week, I want to be able to have it all. Yes, I did. Fun fact, I actually last night made a TikTok in case I got eliminated today.” 

Dancing With the Stars airs Tuesdays at 8 p.m. ET/PT on ABC and Disney+.

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