Dancing With The Stars season 35 premiere chaos as frazzled Julianne Hough reveals voting has gone down just MINUTES into the live show
Dancing with the Stars’ season 35 premiere was plunged into chaos on Tuesday when voting for the live show went down just minutes into the broadcast.
Co-host Julianne Hough, 38, was given the task of announcing that online voting was temporarily unavailable after only the second dance of the night.
Fans who attempted to visit ABC’s website to cast their vote were unable to get through, instead receiving a message reading: ‘Error 503 Too Many Variants.’
By 8:45pm ET, her co-host Alfonso Ribeiro updated the audience by announcing that online voting had been completely shut down for the night.
‘For tonight, and tonight only, we are throwing out online votes,’ he declared.
Despite the decision to curtail online voting, viewers can still have their say by voting via text, though the change of plans could prevent some fans from casting their votes.
Dancing with the Stars’ season 35 premiere was plunged into chaos on Tuesday when voting for the live show went down just minutes into the broadcast
Co-host Julianne Hough was given the task of announcing that online voting was temporarily unavailable after only the second dance of the night
The announcement that online voting had crashed came shortly after former Bachelorette contestant Tyler Cameron had completed his dance with DWTS pro Sharna Burgess.
‘A quick update for everyone who is voting at home,’ Hough said just over 25 minutes after the live show commenced. ‘This is coming through live right now: Voting on ABC is currently down live.’
In its place, she urged viewers to ‘please make sure that you guys are texting for everyone.’
‘We will keep you posted as the night goes on,’ she added.
Ribeiro gave an update around 20 minutes later and said DWTS was ‘still having online voting issues.’
After he said that online votes wouldn’t be counted for the first half of the two-part premiere, Hough tried to put a more positive spin on the malfunction.
‘Did we break it with the voting? This is kind of rad!’ she said.
‘We’re breaking stuff around here,’ Ribeiro joked.
The announcement that online voting had crashed came shortly after former Bachelorette contestant Tyler Cameron had completed his dance with DWTS pro Sharna Burgess
‘A quick update for everyone who is voting at home,’ Hough said just over 25 minutes after the live show commenced. ‘This is coming through live right now: Voting on ABC is currently down live’; seen above on Monday at the Primetime Emmy Awards in LA
Ribeiro gave an update around 20 minutes later and said DWTS was ‘still having online voting issues.’ The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air star star said online voting would be thrown out for the episode, but fans could still vote via text; seen above on Monday in LA
After he said that online votes wouldn’t be counted for the first half of the two-part premiere, Hough tried to put a more positive spin on the malfunction. ‘Did we break it with the voting? This is kind of rad!’ she said; (L–R) Carrie Ann Inaba, Derek Hough, Bruno Tonioli, Ribeiro, Hough, Maura Higgins, Guillermo Rodriguez and Jack Olson seen on September 2
Fans located in the US and its territories can vote via SMS by texting a keyword with the name of the male celebrity performing on Tuesday’s show to 21523.
Usually, viewers text the first name of the star they’re voting for, but the presence of Connor Wood and Connor Leavitt has forced them to text ‘Connor W’ or ‘Connor L’ to specify whom they’re casting votes for.
Wood is known for being a TikTok star, while Leavitt is the husband of The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives star Whitney Leavitt.
Viewers are allowed to cast up to 10 votes per couple per voting method for each show, though only texting will be an option for part one of the premiere.
Notably, only the male celebrities will be performing with their professional dancer partners on Tuesday’s episode, while the female celebrities will debut their dancing skills on Wednesday night’s episode.
During the broadcast, Ribeiro clarified that the couple with the ‘lowest combined total scores and votes’ would be eliminated at the end of each night.
Dancing with the Stars returns with the second night of its two-part season 35 premiere on Wednesday at 8pm ET on ABC, as well as streaming on Disney+. Episodes can also be viewed a day late on Hulu.
