Dancing with the Stars: Tyra Banks speaks out after ‘challenging’ elimination blunder

Moment has drawn comparisons to Steve Harvey’s Miss Universe mistake

Tyra Banks has spoken out after a blunder during the elimination segment of Monday’s episode of Dancing with the Stars.

Towards the end of the episode, the host was tasked with announcing which couples had been saved from elimination, and which two had ended up at the bottom – and thus were at risk of being sent home by the judges.

She began by announcing the two bottom pairs were  actor Anne Heche and her dancing partner Keo Motsepe, as well as former NFL star Vernon Davis and partner Peta Murgatroyd.

Realising a mistake had occurred, Banks then explained: “There’s actually been an error. I’m looking right now, and we have three couples. So we need to clarify this for one second.”

She then announced that the bottom two couples were in fact Heche and Motsepe, as well as Cheer coach Monica Aldama and her partner Valentin Chmerkovskiy.

“There has been an error in our control room, but we are making it happen,” Banks said. “This is live TV, right? This is the craziness of live TV.”

She added shortly after: “I was reading my cards, but my cards were wrong.”

Heche and Motsepe were eventually eliminated from the competition, while Aldama and Chmerkovskiy were saved by the judges.

Banks addressed the mistake on Twitter after the segment aired, writing: “Wowzers. Live TV. Wrong name on cards. So challenging to deal with moments like these. But we power through.”

This wasn’t the only blunder the host experienced during the evening. One hour before tweeting about the elimination incident, she tweeted: “OMG! When I changed outfits, I wasn’t zipped up and had to hold my outfit up while introducing the next act. Live TV, y’all!”

It was announced in July that Banks would be taking over hosting duties on the programme, replacing longtime host Tom Bergeron (who anchored the show for 28 seasons) and co-host Erin Andrews.

Some on social media likened Monday’s blunder with the infamous mistake that saw Steve Harvey crown the wrong Miss Universe, announcing Miss Colombia Ariadna Gutiérrez as the winner of the pageant. It turned out that Gutiérrez was in fact the first runner-up, while Pia Wurtzbach of the Philippines was the winner.