Shannen Doherty surprised by her early 'Dancing with the Stars' exit

Shannen Doherty claims it takes a lot to surprise her, however she didn't expect to be the first celebrity participant ousted from Dancing with the Stars' tenth season.


"I'm never really surprised by anything that happens, but yeah, it was [fellow celebrity-participant Pamela Anderson] and myself in the bottom two and I definitely think that was surprising for both of us," said Doherty during a Wednesday morning interview on Good Morning America.

The former Beverly Hills 90210 actress her professional partner Mark Ballas were eliminated from Dancing with the Stars' tenth season during Tuesday night's first live results show based on the combination of the judges scores they received for their dances on the season's first two Monday night performance shows and the home viewer votes that were cast immediately following both broadcasts.

While Ballas suffered a knee injury during the dress rehearsal before Monday night's performance show that Doherty thought would have kept him out of action had the couple continued, he said on GMA that it wasn't as bad as originally believed.

"There's no major problems -- ACL, MCL damage -- none of that. So hopefully it will be able to heal a little bit quicker than we were expecting. So hopefully I'll be back to dancing on a results show sometime before the end of the season," said Ballas.


"I was going to have my dad come in and fill-in for me during the training process, but I was going to get out there on Monday regardless."

"And I was never going to let him get out there on Monday, regardless," interjected Doherty. "He was told by a doctor to not dance."

"But I was going to get out there regardless," replied Ballas.

"Nope," responded Doherty with a laugh.

Doherty and Ballas were eliminated from Dancing with the Stars even though they had finished in seventh place with 38 out of 60 possible points on the judges' combined two-week leaderboard and been praised for their improvement during Monday night's second performance show.


"I thought she did a great job on Monday and I was really happy with the jive. The judges agreed with me that it was the right thing to do," said Ballas on GMA.

"She had a lot of potential, she danced really well, and for someone who's never really worked out or danced a step in her life I think she did excellent. So if we would have continued in the competition I would have continued to push her everyday."

Doherty has previously stated that the only reason she decided to participate in Dancing with the Stars was for her father, who recently suffered a stroke.

"I did do this for him. I got really interesting note and flowers on Sunday from Teri Hatcher, as a matter of fact. I don't even know her, and she was just talking about how much she was touched by my relationship with my dad," said Doherty on GMA.

"It's really touching and a lot of people can relate to it. There's a lot of people out there whose parents have suffered from something and a lot of people are hurting, and they were able to relate to my story and what I'm going through with my dad. So that was great."


Despite her early exit, Doherty said her das was still very happy with her performance.

"My dad doesn't have his speech 100% back yet, but the first words he learned was, 'I love you.' So he was crying. He said. 'I love you. I'm proud of you baby,'" she said.

Ten couples remain in the running for Dancing with the Stars' tenth-season mirror ball trophy, and Doherty said "everybody's great" when asked to handicap the competition before singling out NFL star Chad Ochocinco.

"I love Ochocinco. Not only is he an absolute teddy bear, but I think he's got so much heart and he's trying really hard," she said.

"I think the judges have been unnecessarily mean to him. So I'm definitely rooting for Chad."


Ballas said Pussycat Dolls member Nicole Scherzinger and gold-medal Olympic figure skater Evan Lysacek -- who have finished in first and second place on the judges' leaderboard during both of the season's first two Monday night performance shows -- have impressed him, but added it's too early to tell.

"It's a great cast this season, so we'll see how it works out," he said. "It's anybody's at the moment."






About The Author: Christopher Rocchio