Michael Bolton and Chelsie Hightower on DWTS.

Michael Bolton and Chelsie Hightower on DWTS.

The Situation is safe for another week as we said goodbye to Michael Bolton last night on Dancing with the Stars.

Michael Bolton and his partner, Chelsie Hightower, were eliminated after a poor jive to the song “Hound Dog.” The dance started out with Michael crawling out of a doghouse (a little too literal way to begin a dance) and unfortunately his dancing just wasn’t up to par.

That being said, judge Bruno Tonioli is finding himself in the doghouse for the very rude and destructive criticism that he gave the pair the previous night.  He actually awarded the pair a “3”, a first for the DWTS series, but his comment even caused fellow judge Len Goodman to tell him that he was completely out of line.  His assessment that it was “the worst jive I [he] had ever seen in all 11 seasons of DWTS” and even continued to comment last night that “”I think Rin Tin Tin would’ve done a better jive… nothing personal.”

It’s comments like this, especially when made to a beginner dancer, that really upset me.  All it takes is one mean and hurtful comment for someone to decide never to dance again (look at Margaret Cho, who admitted that after she was embarrassed by her instructor in a dance class at a young age she never danced again).  I’ve heard story after story of someone’s dance partner deciding they weren’t good enough and leaving them in the middle of the dance floor or seeing the person that just refused an offer of a dance on the floor with someone else five seconds later.  It’s one thing to talk about what went wrong and how to improve – it’s quite another to be rude and spiteful.

So in the spirit of losing Team Boltower, let’s show everyone on the social dance scene that not all dancers are going to tear you down.  Encourage a newbie to keep dancing, to keep trying, and to keep having fun out on the dance floor.  Just be kind to one another and have fun.

You can watch the full episode of the results show here.