Dancing with the Stars judge Carrie Ann Inaba had a fiery exchange with an audience member who shouted at her during Tuesday’s three-hour live finale.
Inaba, 57, was critiquing finalist Jordan Chiles and professional dance partner Ezra Sosa during the season 34 finale when an audience member yelled out from across the ballroom to call Chiles a “queen.”
The heckling caught Inaba by surprise, causing her to immediately jump up out of her chair at the panel and lunge across the table to get a better look at the live studio audience, shouting back, “What? What did you say?”
Co-host Alfonso Ribeiro attempted to move the situation along by asking judge Derek Hough for his feedback, saying: “Alright, alright, it’s alright. Don’t worry about that — Derek, you’re up."
As Hough began talking, Inaba could be seen defiantly staring at the audience member and pointedly shrugging at them.
Inaba has not publicly commented on the confrontation following the finale, which saw Robert Irwin and Witney Carson take home the Mirrorball Trophy. However, fans of the hit ABC competition quickly defended the longtime judge on social media.
“You guys, you have to stop booing Carrie Ann Inaba when she points out a flaw in a dance. she’s literally a judge!!!!!” one viewer wrote on X, with another adding: “People take things too far bc why is someone from the live audience being disrespectful to Carrie Ann and shouting at her like that where she has to address it.”
Another said, “They’ve gotta kick that heckler out of the ballroom the misogyny towards Carrie Ann is actually insane!!!!!!!!!”
Inaba has been a DWTS judge since the show’s premiere in 2005, celebrating her 20th anniversary with the series in June, so she is accustomed to pushback from devoted fans — but she revealed in an interview with Variety earlier this month that it took time to develop thicker skin.
“It used to really affect me,” she confessed to the outlet. “I have been targeted with this kind of negativity since the show began, back when we had chat rooms. I remember seeing some horrible words written about me, and I was shocked.”
She continued, “Sometimes the things they say are cruel, and that has affected me. It’s made me scared. It’s not so much that I get hurt as I get afraid, because it feels like they’re like attacking me verbally, so I shrink down a little during the season.”
