Season 33 of Dancing with the Stars featured Hair Metal Night. All the contestants performed to 80’s rock anthems, complete with mullets and spandex. So, of course, having a rock legend at the judges’ table would be epic, right? Unless that rocker was Gene Simmons of KISS. Then it was a chaotic mess.
Gene Simmons says “Everybody had a great time”
Gene was probably the worst guest judge – ever. His scoring was all over the map. The rock legend tended to award higher scores to dancers and contestants that he found attractive. He tried to give Brooks Nader and Gleb Savchenko the first 10 of the season, but he had already punched in a 9 for a score. He also gave Danny Amendola and Witney Carson’s Paso Doble a 9, which was a little higher than usual.
Meanwhile, Atlanta peach Phaedra Parks and Val Chmerkovskiy’s Paso Doble earned a 7 from the other three judges, while Gene held up his 5-paddle. They deserved higher than that, and Phaedra stated that she thought that they performed well, “despite Gene Simmons being a total ding-a-ling.”
However, even more disturbing were Gene’s creepy comments. He told Danny and Witney, “This is a brand new experience for me and it’s difficult to look at you and to figure out which one is more hot, hot, hot.” Then Gene called an uncomfortable-looking Witney, “one of the more beautiful women on the planet.” Oof.
As if that wasn’t enough he told Chandler Kinney that she “fogged up my glasses.” The 75-year-old added, “You move me, not just with your gyrations and so on, but your beautiful face and how you were into the emotion of it.” He is giving me major ick.
Well, Gene isn’t apologizing for his bizarre behavior. “I stand by every word I said,” Gene told the Daily Mail. “I had a great time. The contestants were great. The show was great.” Next, Gene stated he had “a lot of fun” as a judge on DWTS. “Everybody had a great time,” he added.
Well, not everybody. But some contestants, like Jenn Tran and Sasha Farber, were just stoked to meet Gene. They were able to ignore his “steamy couple” remark. “Listen, he’s an icon. It’s rock ‘n’ roll night. So to have him say that — I’ll take anything he says,” Sasha stated. Enabling crap behavior – are we on Bravo right now?
Hopefully, DWTS will be a bit more selective when picking guest judges moving forward.
Dancing with the Stars airs on Tuesdays at 8/7c on ABC and Disney+.
TELL US – WHAT DID YOU THINK OF GENE’S COMMENTS AND SCORING? WAS HE THE WORST GUEST JUDGE IN DWTS’ HISTORY?
