Credit: Rodney Ho
Credit: Rodney Ho
This was NeNe Leakes' final night on "Dancing With the Stars," finishing in seventh place.
Tony Dovolani, her dance partner, told me before the show started that he thought going in that NeNe Leakes would end up in the middle of the pack on "Dancing With the Stars."
Once he rehearsed with her, he honestly believed she could make the finals. But that was before he saw the other dancers. NeNe has some tough competitors this year, with five celebrities regularly garnering more judges' points than her: Meryl Davis, Amy Purdy, Charlie White, James Maslow and Danica McKellar (who had a rib fracture that could threaten her chances of winning, limiting her ability to be lifted. You could see her movement severely limited tonight.)
As part of the final seven, she could arguably only realistically beat "Full House" actress Candace Cameron Bure without massive extra voting support. She didn't get it after garnering the lowest score of the night with her Argentine Tango.
She received three 8's and a 7 from Len Goodman, the lowest score of the night for the solos.
The dance itself had slink and she brought her powerful personality. Technically, the judges dinged her.
"You need to work on technique. The footwork and leg action could have been crisper," Goodman said.
"That opening walk was a 10 on its own. The movement wasn't sharp enough. There wasn't enough dynamism between speed and motion," Carrie Ann Inaba said.
Candace, in comparison, pulled a 35 out of 40 (while NeNe had only 31 out of 40.)
Overall, NeNe worked really hard and for an amateur, was quite an entertaining presence on the dance floor.
Meryl has been pulling in more 10s than anybody else and got three more tonight. She is now easily the favorite to win it all.
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