INQUISITR.COM / Entertainment

Tamar Braxton Was ‘Unstable’ On ‘Dancing With The Stars,’ According To Nick Carter

By Treva Bowdoin
Published on: 04:22 PST, Nov 10, 2015

Tamar Braxton had a tough night on Dancing with the Stars. If you don’t want to know how things turned out for Tamar and her pro partner, Val Chmerkovskiy, you should stop reading now — DWTS results spoilers are ahead.

At the beginning of last night’s episode of Dancing with the Stars, host Tom Bergeron revealed that Tamar Braxton was suffering from pneumonia, and he really built up the suspense in the ballroom by saying that he didn’t know whether Tamar would be able to dance — the host of The Real was in such bad shape that she had to be rushed to the emergency room.

“Tamar is not here. You’ve noticed that. She was taken to the hospital earlier today midday through dress rehearsal,” Tom Bergeron said, according to People.

Tamar Braxton’s illness didn’t just affect her night. It was Showstopper Week on Dancing with the Stars, and the competitors had to perform a duet dance that would be scored and added to their point totals for the night. Tamar and Val were paired with Backstreet Boys singer Nick Carter and his partner, Sharna Burgess.

Tamar Braxton was in such bad shape that she couldn’t perform her first dance of the night. She and Val were supposed to perform a contemporary routine to “Wicked Game” by James Vincent McMorrow. However, because Tamar was still at the hospital, the judges were presented with footage of her dress rehearsal from earlier in the day to critique. Val Chmerkovskiy was not happy about this, but he also said that he felt terrible about what his partner was going through. In addition to suffering from pneumonia and rehearsing her dance, Tamar had spent the week filming multiple episodes of The Real and flying all over the country to fulfill other work obligations. Val tried to talk himself through the situation by saying that it “doesn’t matter what the judges say,” and Tom Bergeron commended Val for being so “protective” of his Dancing With the Stars partners.

Tamar Braxton was ill and exhausted last night, but she eventually made a dramatic arrival at the DWTS ballroom. Her group danced the rumba to the Beatles song “Hey Jude,” and their performance was inspired by The Beatles: LOVE stage show by Cirque du Soleil. Tamar said that she was nervous about dancing alongside actual Cirque du Soleil dancers because their presence added a little extra pressure — Tamar wanted to do a good enough job that DWTS viewers wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between her performance and those of the Cirque pros.

During the routine, Nick Carter and Tamar Braxton had to break away from their partners and dance for 30 seconds together. Nick later told Us Weekly that dealing with Tamar’s illness was a challenge. Before they hit the ballroom floor, Val Chmerkovskiy pulled the Backstreet Boy aside and told him that he needed to protect Tamar when he stepped in to be her leading man.

https://instagram.com/p/941YEhD0aJ/?taken-by=dancingabc

“She was unstable,” Nick said. “So on top of everything else I needed to know and didn’t learn because of our lack of rehearsals, I had to really put her first and assume that responsibility and really just kind of make sure that she was taken care of.”

Luckily for Tamar Braxton, the group dance routine included a bench. Tom Bergeron made sure that the exhausted singer sat down on the prop before the judges critiqued the dance and gave the group their scores. Tamar’s determination to dance through her illness paid off — the group earned a 27 out of 30 for their rumba. After Tamar had a little time to recover, Tom informed her that she would have been sent home if she hadn’t performed the duet dance.

The only dancer who had a worse night than Tamar was Alexa PenaVega. She and Mark Ballas earned a perfect score for their contemporary routine inspired by Alexa’s battle with bulimia, and they got three more 10s for their Chicago-inspired Charleston duet dance with Bindi Irwin and Derek Hough. Unfortunately, Alexa’s amazing night ended on a sad note when she and Mark were eliminated. In addition to being devastated herself, Alexa had to see her husband (and fellow competitor) Carlos PenaVega break down — he was the second celebrity who was in jeopardy, and he couldn’t stop crying after his wife was sent home.

“I just wish it had been me,” he said.

However, in his pre-dance video package, Carlos was singing a very different tune.

“I want to beat my wife,” he quipped while talking about his DWTS goals.

Alexa PenaVega wasn’t the only celebrity who earned a perfect score for both of her routines — a blindfolded Bindi Irwin and Derek Hough were awarded a trio of 10s for their Viennese Waltz. Nick Carter and Jessica Rabbit lookalike Sharna Burgess finished in third place after combining the 28 they earned for their quickstep with their duet score, and Carlos PenaVega came it fourth after earning a 27 for his Argentine Tango to Justin Bieber’s “What Do You Mean?”

Carlos and his partner, Witney Carson, performed a duet with freshly-manscaped Alek Skarlatos and Lindsay Arnold. Their paso doble to Queen’s “We Will Rock You” earned a score of 24. Tamar Braxton and Val Chmerkovskiy finished in next-to-last place with their combined 22 and 27, and Alek Skarlatos finished at the bottom of the leaderboard after being awarded a 24 for his salsa routine.

If Tamar Braxton had decided that she was too sick to dance, there’s a good chance that Alexa PenaVega would still be in the competition. Are you glad that Tamar is moving on to the semi-finals, or do you think Alexa should be part of the final five instead?

[Image via DancingABC Instagram]

Share this article: Tamar Braxton Was ‘Unstable’ On ‘Dancing With The Stars,’ According To Nick Carter
tamar braxton Dancing with the Stars Nick Carter Val Chmerkovskiy
More from Inquisitr