Whose Score Was It Anyway? Bruno Tonioli Triggers DWTS Drama With Quick-Change Seven to Eight

Avery Sinclair here, your resident sarcastic cynic ready to spill the tea without the hype machine getting in the way. A signature note from the cynic’s playbook: if you want the truth served with a side of sass, I’m your person. So yes, the Dancing With the Stars season 34 premiere just gave us more fanfare than a tallying error deserves, and I’m here to dissect every glittering misstep with a cold, precise eye.

On the September 16 premiere, Whitney Leavitt and pro Mark Ballas stepped into the DWTS ballroom armed with a tango that screamed elegance and a routine that fans would judge by the tiniest pivot. The performance itself, judged live by Derek Hough and Bruno Tonioli, drew early praise for its poise, necklines, and that classic tango line. Bruno called it “a fantastic tango, as it should be. No messing around. Very, very, very high quality.” Derek echoed the sentiment, describing the performance as “beautiful” and highlighting the dance’s technical finesse—from the oversway to the pivots.

But here’s where the sparkly grease hits the gears: the scoreboard. The telecast showed Derek and Bruno each holding up seven out of 10, signaling a clean, even judge consensus. Then the screen betrayed the slip of the hand or perhaps the run of a rogue backstage button, flashing an eight for Bruno’s score. Co-host Julianne Hough had to step in with the rewind, revealing the live miscue. “Actually, we just came through my ear right now,” she explained, clarifying the correction: Bruno had submitted an eight, making the total score a 15. The moment was a quintessential DWTS moment—live television, real-time corrections, and a judge’s misstep that immediately sparked a cascade of online chatter.

The fallout was almost comical in its simplicity: while the audience watched a doubles act of perfect professional praise and a tiny scoring flub, the show pressed on. Bruno, ever the flamboyant judge, laughed off the error as if it were a minor fashion malfunction, shrugging with that signature brushed-in confidence. Julianne’s quick on-air correction also underscored a common DWTS reality—live scoring is a high-stakes, high-visibility process, and even the judges are human when the clickety-click of a numeric keypad goes rogue.

Whitney Leavitt’s personal backdrop adds a bit of pathos to the numbers: she welcomed her third baby with husband Connor Leavitt just 11 months prior, turning a high-gloss performance into something more intimate and, frankly, inspiring. The judges made a point of praising the debut’s technicality and stage presence, with Derek offering precise notes on frame and consistency while acknowledging Carrie Ann Inaba’s absence due to illness—an absence that did not go unnoticed by fans who’ve grown accustomed to her voice as the season’s formal calibration.

So what does this mean in the grand scheme of DWTS season 34? A reminder that even in a world of sequins and high-definition telegraphs, human error slips through the glitter. The eight vs seven miscue wasn’t a scandal so much as a reminder that live TV is unpredictable, and that judges’ panels are as fallible as red-carpet timing. The bigger story here is the star power in Whitney Leavitt’s dance, the resilience of a contestant bouncing back after a long break, and the quintessential DWTS moment where a score correction becomes the night’s most discussed plot twist.

What to watch next? Will the scores stay perfectly pristine, or will more glitches pop up as the competition accelerates? Stay tuned, because the ballroom’s clock is always ticking, and the next miscalibrated number could become tonight’s hottest headline.

Sources: Celebrity Storm and E! Online
Entertainment Tonight
Attribution: Creative Commons Licensed (GO)