‘DWTS’ Celebrity Hoped to Be Eliminated, Told Friends Not to Vote for Him: Why Jason Mraz Wanted Out

Jason Mraz may have been the Season 32 runner-up on Dancing With the Stars, but the singer-songwriter was privately hoping to be sent home much earlier.

The “I’m Yours” artist, 47, revealed during a July 2024 episode of Jesse Tyler Ferguson’s Dinner’s On Me podcast that his love for his cat had him begging loved ones not to vote for him after each performance.

“Two or three weeks in, I realized I’m probably going to be here the whole time and I’m terrified and I have to cancel all my plans for the entire rest of the year, and I’m missing my cat terribly. And I start telling my friends, ‘Stop voting for me!’” Mraz remembered. “It’s like the only way I can get off this show is if I don’t get enough votes.”

The musician, who was paired with pro Daniella Karagach, recalled telling the ABC series’ producers, “‘I’m good. I can go home now, thank you so much for the honor,’” only for them to tell him they had no ability to send him home. “So the only thing I could do is ask friends to vote for someone else,” he confessed.

Despite his initial reluctance, Mraz and Karagrach’s spirited performances took them all the way to finale night, where they came in second to Xochitl Gomez and Val Chmerkovskiy.

“Having made it all the way to the very end, made it to the buzzer, I look back and laugh and think, well, maybe if I’d actually given a s-t!” Mraz said upon reflection. “So, I would do it all over again if I could and I would try really hard. Maybe, they’ll have a Dancing With the Stars all-star season. I would go back.”

During the Season 32 run, Mraz opened up to PopCulture about how working with Karagach inspired him to push through the difficult moments. “She was only three months into being a new mom when she came into this season to be a pro, learning all the pro dances, [being a] teacher and a coach to an amateur like me, and [keeping] the schedule that she does,” he said at the time. “Right away, I knew that nothing I was doing in my life would compare to the energy that she’s putting into this.”

Watching Karagach and her husband, fellow pro Pasha Pashkov, put so much energy into their routines week to week, the “Lucky” singer felt “their energy became mine right away.” He added, “As much as I wanted to complain about the schedule, that was impossible because how they show up every day is incredible.”

Season 33 of DWTS is underway now, with six celebrity pairings still in the running for the Mirrorball Trophy: Chandler Kinney and Brandon Armstrong; Danny Amendola and Witney Carson; Stephen Nedoroscik and Rylee Arnold; Joey Graziadei and Jenna Johnson; Dwight Howard and Daniella Karagach; and Ilona Maher and Alan Bersten.

Dancing With the Stars airs Tuesdays at 8 p.m. ET on ABC and Disney+.