Will Mark Ballas’ Injury Stop His Trio Dance With Bindi Irwin And Derek Hough On ‘Dancing With The Stars’?
Dancing With the Stars has had more than its share of injuries this season. Kim Zolciak and Tamar Braxton both withdrew because of blood clots. Peta Murgatroyd, who was scheduled to dance with Andy Grammer, had to pull out before the season debuted because of unexpected foot surgery. Now, it seems Mark Ballas, who was eliminated last Monday with his partner Alexa PenaVega, has also hurt his foot. That puts his planned trio dance with Bindi Irwin and Derek Hough in jeopardy.
Derek broke the news on his TV Guide blog. In an entry dated Thursday, the former mirror ball champion alluded to the fact that it’s been tough on the Dancing With the Stars pros foot injury-wise over the past two seasons — last year, Hough was sidelined and Sasha Farber had to step in to dance with his partner Nastia Liukin — and admitted he didn’t know whether the trio performance would go as currently planned.
“We’re doing it with Mark, but I don’t know if that’s gonna happen anymore because he hurt his foot. He got glass or something in it. Between him and me, it hasn’t been a good two seasons for feet! So we’ll see if he can still do it with us.”
But if there was any question about Ballas’ commitment to the Irwin-Hough team, fans need only to go to his Instagram page, where he made a clear allusion on Thursday to Bindi and Derek’s salute to Dirty Dancing performance, including its infamous lift, that took place earlier this season. Ballas photoshopped himself in a photo of the pair.
If Ballas does perform with Hough and Irwin, that trio would seem to have an advantage because of Mark and Derek’s long history. As an Entertainment Weekly article discussed this week, Hough moved to London as a child to study dance with Mark’s parents. Hough told EW he was once nervous at the thought of having to tutor celebrities. Surprisingly, Hough said he never really thought he’d become best known as a dancer.
“I don’t think at any point did I ever think dancing was going to be my life and even now I still don’t think it’s the case. I really enjoy the competition aspect of it and the structure … and having a career goal and knowing if I train and I worked really hard then I could obtain that goal.”
Hough has had many amazing partners and has in the past won the mirror ball trophy, the highest honor of Dancing With the Stars. All pros on DWTS train and compete with celebrities of varying levels of dance background, athleticism and life experience. Hough told EW that it was paralympian Amy Purdy who stood out for him.
“I got so used to [dancing with her], but when you step back and realize … that it was pretty remarkable. We literally had to invent and work with prosthetic doctors to create different feet and legs and that was pretty extraordinary. For me, it was more extraordinary to see her eyes light up when she realized she could do things she never thought she could do.”
With Braxton no longer competing on Dancing With the Stars, the show is down to four couples. It was revealed Thursday that the show will not bring anyone back to replace Braxton and it’s not yet been revealed whether Monday night’s show will include an elimination. Bindi and Derek have been front runners in the competition, but they face a stiff challenge from the other remaining stars, Nick Carter, Carlos PenaVega, and Alek Skarlatos.
Dancing With the Stars airs Monday night on ABC.
[Main photo Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images Entertainment]
