Dancing with the Stars judges' leaderboard was topped by Kellie Pickler and Alexandra "Aly" Raisman during Monday night's broadcast of the sixteenth season's seventh performance show.
ADVERTISEMENT
Kellie, a former American Idol finalist and country singer, and her professional partner Derek Hough and Aly, a 2012 Olympic gold medal winning gymnast, and partner Mark Ballas finished tied for first place with 29 out of 30 possible points on the leaderboard following their individual Latin routines from Dancing with the Stars judges Len Goodman, Carrie Ann Inaba and Bruno Tonioli.
Kellie and Derek danced the samba, while Aly and Mark took the stage and performed a salsa routine.
Disney Channel star Zendaya Coleman and partner Val Chmerkovskiy finished tied for third place on the judges' leaderboard with NFL football player Jacoby Jones and partner Karina Smirnoff. Both couples earned 27 points after Zendaya and Val performed the paso doble and Jacoby and Karina danced the salsa.
Fifth place went to The Bachelor star Sean Lowe and partner Peta Murgatroyd, who received 24 points for their rumba routine during the Latin round.
ADVERTISEMENT
Soap star Ingo Rademacher and partner Kym Johnson landed in sixth place on the leaderboard with 22 points after dancing the rumba.
Actor and comedian Andy Dick and partner Sharna Burgess finished in seventh -- and last -- place on the leaderboard. They earned only 17 points from the judges for their rumba routine.
Following the first round of competition Monday night in which the celebrity and professional pairings were required to perform a Latin dance to a Latin song, the couple that received the highest score from the judges was granted immunity, meaning the couple cannot be eliminated during tonight's live results show.
While Kellie and Aly tied for first place on the leaderboard, Kellie and Derek have achieved the higher cumulative judges' scores of the season, so they received immunity.
The rest of the contestants, including Aly, then participated in a Dance-Off Challenge in attempt to earn extra judges' points.
ADVERTISEMENT
For the Dance-Off Challenge, the six couples went head to head in three separate dance-offs. The couple with the second highest total score from the Latin round got first pick of a pair to compete against in the dance-off, which required the couples to perform the same dance style one at a time. The selected pair was then given the opportunity to pick the dance style.
The same rules applied moving all the way down the leaderboard. The next highest-scoring couple got to decide whom they wanted to perform against, and then that chosen couple got to choose the style, and so on. The winner of each dance-off received three extra judges' points in addition to their individual scores.
Aly and Mark got to select a couple to dance-off against first, and they opted to face Andy and Sharna. Andy and Sharna chose to dance the cha cha. In the end, all three judges agreed Aly and Mark had won the dance-off.
Although Zendaya and Val had tied for third place with Jacoby and Karina, Zendaya and Val were given the power to choose whom they wanted to perform against considering they had the higher cumulative scores of the season.
Much to viewers' surprise, Zendaya and Val picked Jacoby and Karina -- who in turn selected the jive to perform. All three judges decided Zendaya and Val had won.
ADVERTISEMENT
The previous pairings then left Ingo and Kym to square off against Sean and Peta with the rumba. Carrie and Len voted for Ingo to win the dance-off, while Bruno claimed Sean was victorious. Therefore, Ingo and Kym were declared the winners.
As a result of the challenge, Aly and Mark, Zendaya and Val, and Ingo and Kym all received three bonus points.
The scores of last night's judging leaderboard will now be combined with the home viewer voting results to determine which of the six couples in jeopardy will be eliminated on Dancing with the Stars' sixth sixteenth-season results show Tuesday night at 9PM ET/PT.
About The Author: Elizabeth Kwiatkowski