Ryan Lochte Gets Emotional Over His Mom’s Tearful Reaction During ‘DWTS’ Protest
Emotions are still running high for Ryan Lochte since he made his controversial Dancing With the Stars premiere on September 12, an unprecedented debut which ended in chaos when two protestors stormed the stage.
On Monday's latest episode (September 19), the Olympic swimmer addressed the aftermath of the protest, revealing that the worst part of the ordeal was seeing the tearful reaction of his mom, who was seated in the stands during the incident.
"After the dance, two people protesting against me went out on the dance floor," Lochte recounted.
"Then I look up in the stands and I see my mom just in tears. After seeing her in tears, just..." he added, before trailing off emotionally. "This situation has impacted me so much. It's just, how far can I put it back in my head and move on?"
Previously unseen footage aired during the episode revealed Lochte and his partner, Cheryl Burke, getting accidentally shoved in the security shuffle, along with clips of Derek Hough passionately kicking out a row of protestors seated in the audience ("Get out! It's a good show, a positive show. Get out of here!") and Lochte's mother crying.
After the episode, in which Lochte and Burke danced to The Muppets theme song, the contestant spoke to Entertainment Tonight, where he opened up about the support that his Dancing co-stars and crew, including Hough, judge Carrie Ann Inaba and competitor Vanilla Ice, have shown him since the on-air incident.
"It felt good that my [Dancing With the Stars] family has my back and we’re gonna stick together," Lochte said. "The support they showed me definitely touched me right here and I’m thankful for that."
Despite the flurry of support, Lochte admitted that he isn't interested in reliving the scary moment, and that he has no plans to watch the footage of the protestors crashing the stage.
"I don’t want to," he said. "I don’t want to recap that just because I’ll start getting down on myself and after what happened with [that]... Dancing With the Stars, they’ve shown so much support and I’ve been so positive lately that I just gotta keep being positive and I don’t want to go back."
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