Lindsay Arnold Dishes On Disappointments While On ‘DWTS’
When dancers join the cast of Dancing With The Stars, they don’t always stay pro dancers. Before the pandemic hit, we saw many dancers go back and forth between troupe member and pro dancer. Current pro dancer Lindsay Arnold was one of these dancers.
There’s always a chance to be a pro again. Ultimately, it seems to boil down to which celebrities ABC could get for the show that year. But Lindsay Arnold recently opened up about what it was like to go from a pro to a troupe member — and she wasn’t happy about it.
Lindsay Arnold reveals she felt disappointed when ABC downgraded her to a troupe member
Lindsay sat down with Jason Tartick on a recent episode of his “Trading Secrets” podcast. She revealed that Dancing With The Stars called and asked her to join the cast so she delayed college.
“Then, I think after that first season of Dancing With the Stars, I realized, like, ‘Oh, maybe I don’t need to go to college right now.’ … It just fell into place,” she said.
Lindsay Arnold made her debut season in March 2013 when she was just 19-years-old for Season 16. Her partner was boxer Victor Ortiz and the two didn’t quite see eye to eye. Lindsay, now 28, believes this had something to do with the demotion to troupe member.
“Then, I was given the boot down to troupe for four or five seasons,” she continued. “And then brought [back] up to pro. I wasn’t ready. I just was not ready. Honestly, that was probably one of the hardest parts of my career even though it’s such an incredible job; it’s an amazing job.”
She did go on to win Season 25 with Jordan Fisher, which was one of the highlights of her career. However, she can’t help but feel sad when she thinks about the seasons where she was demoted. According to Lindsay, troupe members put in more dance training hours but receive much less pay than the pro dancers do.
The dancer had other issues with Dancing With The Stars this year
This isn’t the first time Lindsay Arnold expressed her discontent with a decision Dancing With The Stars made. During Season 30, she ruffled a few feathers after the judges voted to eliminate her and Matt James from the competition. She even went as far as to claim the judges had a “hidden agenda.”
“They said nice things, like they weren’t mean, but then we got 6s, which was like — it was insane … they were so blatantly underscoring Matt. I’ve been around on this show for a long enough time to know when they’re just purposefully underscoring somebody for some sort of agenda that I’m not aware of,” the 28-year-old admitted in a vlog at the time.
“We did not deserve 6s and the thing that sucked was then watching the rest of the night and seeing how other people scored and their quality of dancing and comparing, it was just mind-blowing to me. I was super bummed and Matt was bummed.”
Do you think DWTS has treated Lindsay Arnold unfairly over the years? Be sure to let us know what you think in the comments!
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