Former The Bachelorette star Charity Lawson is opening up about her experience competing on Dancing With The Stars months after she came in fourth place on the ABC reality television competition show. Sadly, Lawson is admitting that she struggled with her mental health during her time on the program.
Lawson ‘Went Through Hell’
“While Dancing with the Stars was great, I literally went through hell and back with my mental health on that show,” Lawson, 28, said while appearing on the “Sex, Lies, and Spray Tans” podcast. This podcast is hosted by the former dancing pro Cheryl Burke, who has been critical of Dancing With The Stars since she left the show in 2022.
Lawson said the criticism and bullying that she was forced to deal with “hit me like a ton of bricks.” Since she had previous experience on reality TV, Lawson wasn’t expecting it to be as hard to deal with as it was.
“I came into the Dancing With the Stars fan base, and I was like, ‘This is gonna be a piece of cake,'” she recalled. “Only to be, like almost to the point where it was so much worse than Bachelor and Bachelorette. I was getting death threats for like, existing.”
Related: ‘DWTS’ Judge Len Goodman Chillingly Predicted His Own Death Months Before His Passing
Specific Attacks From Fans
Lawson then explained what kinds of things she was attacked for from fans.
“For not performing enough, for being conceited, for being entitled, for being the biggest […] on the cast,” she continued. “No, it’s crazy. Like I’m telling you this and for anyone that doesn’t know I’m saying this too, this is like the first time I’m openly talking about it.”
“It got to the point where I was like I have to choose to protect my peace and not even give any attention to this,” she added. “It was so damaging. Night in, night out.”
On her own social media, Lawson blocked and filtered the comments section to improve the situation. She unfortunately had no control over the Dancing with the Stars social media pages, however.
“I had to tell [partner] Artem [Chigvintsev], I was like, ‘This is unfortunately what we’re dealing with and what we’re up against.’ If you look in comparison to every other contestant on the season, they don’t have this underneath their comments,” she recounted.
Lawson eventually went to the producers for help. However, “it was too far gone” by then for them to fix the situation, whatever that means!
“That’s why I said it’s not really surprising,” she said. “Someone messaged me and said like the same thing kind of happened to Simone [Biles] when she competed [on season 24]. And I was like, it’s just honestly a trend. Which is kind of frustrating.”
“I’m only speaking out about my experience, how I feel … just being and existing,” Lawson stated.
Related: Tyra Banks Leaving ‘Dancing With The Stars’ 3 Years After Replacing Tom Bergeron
Lawson Partly Blames The Edit
Lawson partly blames the show’s edit for the backlash she received. In the packages before her dances, Lawson was often portrayed as being obsessed with her scores during rehearsals.
In other words, she was portrayed as conceited, and fans reacted accordingly.
“It’s almost like skewing the viewers to perceive me in this way of like, ‘All she cares about is scores … She thinks she’s better than everyone,'” she explained. “But I’m like, at the end of the day, I don’t think I’m better than anyone, I’m just trying to get to the point where I feel like I should be, or honestly, where my handwork has taken me.”
Despite all of this, Lawson is still glad that she did Dancing With The Stars.
“It would be defeating and so frustrating looking back on it if I knew I just quit or just walked out. And I’d be really upset with myself,” she concluded. “I’m grateful that I stuck it out.”
Competing on a show like Dancing With The Stars certainly seems like a grueling experience. Perhaps other celebrities should take note of what Lawson said before signing up for this!
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