Sean Spicer Admits ‘DWTS’ Was Harder Than Working at the White House

Sean Spicer knows a thing or two about stress and when it comes to his time on Dancing With the Stars, he says that it was “worse” than his time as the White House Press Secretary, a position he resigned from in 2017. Speaking on Lynette Rice and Patrick Gomez’s Eye on the Ball Sirius XM show following his elimination Monday night, Spicer opened up about his time on the ABC dancing competition and his thoughts post-elimination.

“The show was worse…And I don’t mean worse than a bad way. I mean…How about this: It was greater,” Spicer said, according to Entertainment Weekly. “I think it’s a combination of two things. One, yes, it’s way out of my comfort zone. And two is, when you’re dealing with incoming questions, you can figure out how to punt the question, divert it. When you’re out on a dance floor for a minute and a half, you have to go. And you can’t hide and you can’t defer to somebody else. And every step that you take, is going to be watched and viewed and judged.”

Announced to be joining the cast in August and paired with pro dancer Lindsay Arnold, Spicer admitted that he didn’t initially see himself making it very far in the competition.

“My goal going into this was to make at least one week of eliminations. It was my birthday on that first elimination, my family was here and all I wanted to do was not have to fly to New York that night,” he said. “And then beyond that it’s just grown. It has exceeded my expectations in every way. And I’ve been so, so proud and honored to be part of this season.”

To much surprise and controversy, Spicer far exceeded not only his own expectation, but the expectations of both viewers and judges Carrie Ann Inaba, Len Goodman, and Bruno Tonioli when he continued to rake in the votes and fend off elimination on a weekly basis. That string of good luck did run its course, though, and Spicer was sent home Monday night after being in the bottom two with Lauren Alaina and her pro partner Gleb Savchenko.

“I enjoyed every day that I was on the show. And the beauty of it was quite the opposite,” Spicer said of his time on the ABC dancing competition. “They, the other cast members, the pros, the crew were, to a point, unbelievably supportive and encouraging.”

Facing criticism and controversy, Spicer credited his professional dancing partners Arnold and Jenna Johnson, who stepped in the last two weeks, for keeping him focused.

“And I think where Lindsey and then Jenna continued to help me focus was to say, ‘Look, this is a competition that is half judges and half people. And there are people out there that want you to continue. And you need to remember that that counts just as much, and that these people want you to stay on. And we need to work hard to show that we want to be there.’”

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