‘Dancing With the Stars’ Crowns New Winner

American Idol just crowned their season 12 winner last week, and this week it was time for Dancing With the Stars to crown their season 16 winner. Did you watch? Do you know who won? I’ll give you a hint, she was a former contestant on American Idol. Yeah, the country superstar Kellie Pickler won the competition after scoring 10s across the board with partner Derek Hough. Kellie beat out NFL wide receiver, Jacoby Jones and Zendaya from the Disney Channel.

The win was somewhat surprising. A lot of people had picked Zendaya to win it all, but it was Kellie Pickler who stepped it up late in the competition. Kellie actually did better on Dancing With the stars than she did on American Idol! She only made it down to the top 6 on American Idol, although she did have to beat out more people to get herself in that position. She managed to squeeze out a win last night, though. It wasn’t easy, Kellie and Zendaya were only separated by one point going into the show Tuesday.  Kellie said after finding out that she had won the competition,

 “I’m overwhelmed with joy. I’m kinda speechless for the first time. Usually, I’m spitting out words left and right. Now I don’t know what to say.”

“I was just standing there and there was just two of us left. I was kind of playing the whole journey through my mind. I was visualizing every dance. We made so many memories out here on the dance floor and in the studio.”

Pickler’s dancing partner, Derek Hough also spoke after their win and he had very positive things to say about the country girl.

“We never talked about winning. My mentality was doing good work and doing good dances, and trying to push her to her limit and bring out her full potential. I feel like she reached this amazing pinnacle last night with the freestyle.”

And with that, season 16 of the dancing competition was over. Ratings for the season were down significantly from last season, but they still managed to bring in a big audience. However, they are planning on shaking things up for the upcoming fall season. They are going to eliminate the long results show that does so poorly in the ratings. The performances and results will now be shown on the same night, ABC thinks this move will help overall ratings.