Amanda Kloots says her 'mean' DWTS partner often 'yelled at' her
By Lacey Womack
As much fun as dancing is, it comes as no surprise to reality TV fans that ABC's Dancing with the Stars is a seriously tough show to compete in. The high stress of the performances and the long hours training can't be easy on the celebrities that appear on the show and Amanda Kloots is revealing just how tough it can get.
On Harry Jowsey's podcast Boyfriend Material, Amanda Kloots revealed just how tough it was to compete on DWTS alongside her partner Alan Bersten who she said was "mean" while they were practicing their dance routines on the show.
Amanda Kloots is a Broadway star, author, and talk show host who appeared as one of the celebrities on season 30 of Dancing with the Stars. She placed 4th on her season of the show and it sounds like that must have been thanks to the tough love that her pro dancer partner gave her during training. Amanda Kloots said that although she appreciated that he was hard on her, it wasn't always easy for her to see that it was to help her.
"He did see a lot of potential in me and he saw that we could possibly win this thing. And I think when a pro has a star that has that potential, they can get very mean because they're like, I could win, I wanna win," she revealed about the way that her partner, who she believes was so tough on her because of his upbringing as a dancer, pushed her outside of her comfort zone and encouraged her to work harder.
But, Amanda Kloots revealed that her "mean" partner wasn't always easy for her to deal with and that sometimes, she was really struggling with the pressure that he was putting on her -- but she says that she never let it show and worked hard to keep it to herself.
She shared that there were times that she was really struggling with dancing through the pressure during practice and that while her partner would sometimes "yell" at her, she had to keep her feelings to herself because if she got too upset, the producers would come film it and do an interview for the episode, which would seriously cut into their practice time.
She said on the podcast, "I knew if I had a breakdown, the producers would come in, wanna do an OTF, and then we would lose an hour of our rehearsal time."
Because of that, she says that she was forced to hold in all of her emotions and keep the stress inside her through their practice in order to not sacrifice any of her dance time to the cameras. She told the podcast host, "I would just keep it bottled up and we would just be like dancing and I would just be like raging inside."
Even though Amanda Kloots said that DWTS was hard, she loved the experience. And on whether or not she would go back and do the show again if she was given the chance? Amanda says she absolutely would "in a heartbeat."
"I'd do it for free. Every year I'm like, 'Is it all-star season yet?'" She said on the podcast and said even though her dance pro partner was hard on her, the two of them "had a blast" and that she loved dancing before joining the show, so she had naturally been thrilled to be on the show when she was cast on her season.