Amber Riley Leads The Pack In Dancing With The Stars

Amber Riley and her dance partner Derek Hough. wowed the judges on yesterday’s Dancing With The Stars season 16 première. The pair received the highest score of the night with an amazing 27 out of 30.

The glee star spoke to Us Weekly about her performance of the cha cha with Hough: “Glee is more grueling [than] DWTS. Trust me.”

Hough warned Amber Riley that her thoughts on the hardcore rehearsal session may change as the season progresses: “Ask her again in a few weeks,” he said: “DWTS is live and it’s one take, so this is eventually going to be harder,”

Riley spoke about the massive difference for her between recording an episode of Glee and performing live on Dancing With The Stars: “On Glee, there’s cutaways, a take two… 11 other people distracting your bad dancing. If you forget something, they can edit it out.”

Hough also spoke to Us about how impressed he was with Riley’s performance so far: “I saw right away she was really good at maintaining the things I was teaching her. She would come in the next day and have retained that information. We were able to get better and better. I’m going to whoop her a– now!”

Here is a look at the leaderboard after the first show:

Amber Riley & Derek Hough, cha cha, 27/30

Corbin Bleu & Karina Smirnoff, contemporary, 24/30

Elizabeth Berkley Lauren and Val Chmerkovskiy, contemporary, 24/30

Jack Osbourne & Cheryl Burke, foxtrot, 23/30

Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi & Sasha Farber, cha cha, 23/30

Brant Daugherty & Peta Murgatroyd, cha cha, 22/30

Christina Milian & Mark Ballas, contemporary, 22/30

Valerie Harper & Tristan MacManus, foxtrot, 21/30

Leah Remini & Tony Dovolani, foxtrot, 21/30

Bill Engvall & Emma Slater, foxtrot, 18/30

Keyshawn Johnson & Sharna Burgess, cha cha, 17/30

Bill Nye The Science Guy & Tyne Stecklein, cha cha, 14/30 — Jolie Lash