Dancing with the Stars has a clear frontrunner to win Season 23's mirrorball trophy: Olympic gold gymnast Laurie Hernandez and her professional partner Val Chmerkovskiy.

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Laurie and Val finished in first place on Monday night's leaderboard out of the 11 competing couples when they received 30 out of 30 points from Dancing with the Stars judges Carrie Ann Inaba, Julianne Hough and Bruno Tonioli during the ABC broadcast. Judge Len Goodman missed the episode due to other career commitments.

Laurie and Val's jazz routine received the first perfect score of the season for the show's Cirque Du Soleil Week. In addition to earning immunity for their face-off last week, Laurie and Val have managed to top the judges' leaderboard three times.

Professional race car driver James Hinchcliffe and partner Sharna Burgess claimed second place on the leaderboard with 28 points after taking the stage with a quickstep routine.

Little Women: LA star Terra Jole and partner Sasha Farber landed in third place on the leaderboard. They danced a 25-point worthy samba.

Two celebrity and professional pairings tied for fourth place with 24 points from the judges: The Brady Bunch star Maureen McCormick and partner Artem Chigvintsev as well as talk show host and model Amber Rose and partner Maksim Chmerkovskiy. Both couples performed an Argentine tango.

In regards to the "body-shaming" feud in which Amber believed Julianne had criticized her sexy dance routine last week as being "uncomfortable" to watch due to Amber's voluptuous curves, both women cleared up any miscommunication and misunderstanding.

Julianne insisted she's only on Dancing with the Stars to judge the contestants' dancing and she is absolutely not the type of person who would judge or shame a woman when it comes to body image. Amber appreciated the explanation and apologized if she had taken Julianne's words out of context.

Sixth place turned out to be a three-way tie at 23 judges' points for the following celebrities: Former rapper and The Vanilla Ice Project star Vanilla Ice (formally known as Robert Van Winkle), country singer Jana Kramer and retired NFL wide receiver Calvin Johnson Jr.

Vanilla Ice and partner Witney Carson performed a Viennese waltz, Jana and partner Gleb Savchenko danced the foxtrot, and Calvin and partner Lindsay Arnold impressed with a Charleston routine.

Ninth place went to Olympic gold swimmer and former What Would Ryan Lochte Do? star Ryan Lochte and partner Cheryl Burke. The couple earned 22 points from the judges for their Viennese waltz.

Actress and former The Celebrity Apprentice contestant Marilu Henner and partner Derek Hough finished the night in tenth place on the judges' leaderboard after dancing a 21-point worthy paso doble.

Iconic singer and producer Kenny "Babyface" Edmonds and partner Allison Holker unfortunately landed in eleventh and last place on the leaderboard with only 18 points. The pair had a difficult time making their way around the stage while staying in one spotlight at a time. 

The judges' votes and home viewer votes from Monday night's performance show will be combined to determine which two Dancing with the Stars couples will be eliminated during the upcoming Tuesday night results show at 8PM ET/PT on ABC.


About The Author: Elizabeth Kwiatkowski

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