Tyler Cameron has spoken out after storming off the set of Dancing With the Stars, following a harsh score of five from guest judge Shirley Ballas. The model and TV personality took to TikTok to clarify his behaviour, which came after he and partner Sharna Burgess were marked down during Horror Movie Night.
Walk-off after low score
On Tuesday, October 27, the BBC's Strictly Come Dancing head judge appeared on the US show, scoring celebrity contestants on Horror Movie Night in advance of Halloween. Tyler and Sharna received a five for their Viennese Waltz to Annie Lennox's Love Song for a Vampire, after the other three judges had awarded them sevens.
The 33-year-old was seen walking off set after the scores were revealed. The couple were later eliminated alongside baseball player Jackson Olson and Emma Slater in a double elimination.
Cameron's social media response
In a video filmed after the show, Cameron addressed his reaction. "This has been a once-in-a-lifetime, incredible experience. I mean it from my heart, I am so grateful for everything," he began. "I also want to say, too, y'all saw a real human moment out of me. Not my proudest moment, when I was upstairs getting my scores. I thought we were done filming, and needed to step away from it all. I was disappointed in myself."
He explained that he felt it "was boom or bust at that time," adding that "we needed to have a great score or we were out of this competition." He admitted: "And it was bust. In my head, I felt like I let myself down. More importantly, I felt like I let Sharna down."
Burgess defends partner
Burgess insisted Cameron had performed well and maintained that Ballas's scoring was not fair. "Every bit of technique that got called out is everything we'd been working on all week. Watching it back, to be honest, I think you executed a lot of it beautifully. I think your score should not have been sevens. I don't know why you were given sevens. I think you could've been eights and Shirley's five. Which, by the way, which was the highest she scored a ballroom dancer the whole night," she pointed out.
Cameron added: "I was extremely disappointed. That was just real and raw. This show is a pressure cooker, and all I wanted to do was score well and crush it."
Ballas defends her marks
During her guest stint, Ballas proved harsher than the other judges, handing out fours to two duos in week seven of the competition. This is the lowest score anyone has received at this point in the competition across 35 seasons.
Defending her marks in an interview with ABC's On the Red Carpet, she said: "...To me, those scores are actually still quite good because they're not twos and threes! Four, fives, and sixes to me is generally a good score. You're on a good track. And then, when you get to sevens, eights, and nines, you've really mastered your craft."
