Dancing With the Stars got personal during Most Memorable Year Night on Tuesday, October 24, as contestants performed dances inspired by significant moments in their lives.
Some of the dancers’ most memorable years held happy memories.
“My heart blew up. Being a mother is my greatest, most cherished role,” Mira Sorvino told partner Gleb Savchenko during rehearsal, reflecting on becoming a mother after welcoming daughter Mattea in 2004 with husband Christopher Backus. (In addition to Savchenko, 40, Sorvino, 56, was joined by Mattea, who is a dancer herself, during the performance.)
Other competitors opened up about challenging chapters of their lives. Charity Lawson broke down in tears while telling partner Artem Chigvintsev about a “toxic relationship” that she left during her most memorable year, 2022.
“At its core, the reason why we just didn’t work out was there was a lot of infidelity and I kept overextending myself to try to make things work,” Lawson, 27, said to cameras, adding that she’s now “happily engaged” to Dotun Olubeko, who proposed to her during the season 20 finale of The Bachelorette in August.
After Lawson and Chigvintsev’s emotional contemporary routine to “Lose You to Love Me” by Selena Gomez, judge Carrie Ann Inaba gave the Bachelor Nation star the first “10” of the competition and said she thinks the performance will be remembered as a standout moment of the season.
Vanderpump Rules star Ariana Madix also knows a thing or two about bad breakups. She picked 2023 as her most memorable year and spoke candidly about navigating her ex-boyfriend Tom Sandoval’s affair with their costar Raquel Leviss.
“Watching my entire life implode in public, my anxiety and depression were at an all-time high and I wasn’t eating or sleeping,” Madix, 38, told cameras before her performance, adding that Sandoval, 41, and Leviss’ betrayal “went so far beyond just cheating together that it’s hard for me to even explain.”
Madix and her partner, Pasha Pashkov, performed a Viennese Waltz to Billie Eilish’s “Happier Than Ever,” a song that celebrates feeling better off without an ex.
“When I think back to scream crying [this song] in the car, I certainly never thought that this is where I would end up,” Madix said of the tune.
While all the stars poured their hearts out during Tuesday’s episode, one duo had their hearts broken as their DWTS journey came to an end. Harry Jowsey and Rylee Arnold and Alyson Hannigan and Sasha Farber had the lowest scores of the night, but Sorvino and Savchenko were ultimately eliminated.
Keep scrolling to see all the performers’ scores from Dancing With the Stars’ Most Memorable Year Night: