‘DWTS’ Mary Wilson Speaks out About Elimination, and Fans Are Sad

Mary Wilson is speaking out after she became the first celebrity to be eliminated from Dancing With the Stars Season 28. The Supremes singer and her partner Brandon Armstrong had nabbed a score of 15/30 with their Cha-Cha to Aretha Franklin’s “Think,” landing them among the lowest scores of the night. While fans had fervently voted to keep her on, the duo were placed in the bottom two and sent off by the judges during Monday night’s elimination round.

“Well, yes!” Wilson told Us Weekly when asked if she was left surprised by her elimination. “[But] everyone on the show ended up really being very good…Someone had to go. Unfortunately, it had to me! But that’s OK. I got lots to do.”

Many viewers of the show, just as Wilson was, were surprised and devastated by her elimination.

“You got rid of Mary Wilson of the Supremes over two terribly stiff performances from a sports person are you utterly dense ?” one person wrote on Twitter.

“A list of things mary wilson deserved: 1. better,” added another.

[Dancing With the Stars] your elimination tonight was just wrong,” wrote a third. “Mary Wilson deserved better.”

A new formatting change to the season meant that the judges – Carrie Ann Inaba, Bruno Tonioli, and Len Goodman – had the opportunity to decide which of the bottom two duos, which also included Ray Lewis and Cheryl Burke, would have another chance to sashay their way to the mirrorball trophy. While Inaba voted to keep Wilson and Armstrong on, Tonioli voted for the latter. Head judge Goodman ultimately made the final decision, stating that “neither of these couples should be in this position.”

“Len [Goodman] said something that I thought was very interesting when he said that he had to choose between his heart and his head,” Wilson said of Goodman’s statements. “It was very nice to hear him say that.”

“I don’t think I was disqualified because of what I was doing. I think it was more that people didn’t vote. They liked me, but they didn’t vote!” she added. “But dancing is something I really loved. I would have liked to have a little more time to actually learn it well.”

Armstrong also seemed to support the decision, regardless of the fact that it came at his own loss.

“The judges are going to have to choose somebody every week in the bottom two,” he told the outlet. “And look, they made their best decision on what they thought was best for the show and best for the individuals.”

New episodes of Dancing With The Stars air Mondays at 8 p.m. ET on ABC.