ABC/Craig SjodinA NASCAR driver and a reality show star have lived to dance another day, but unfortunately an NPR talk show host has to put his dancing shoes away.
After a sweet but relatively lackluster second week performance show, the top 12 couples were back to find out how America voted. Michael Waltrip, Sadie Robertson, and Tavis Smiley all landed in the bottom three, but it was Smiley who was sent home.
His disco cha-cha clearly didn't impress America, and didn't gain him any favor from the judges either, who awarded him 28 out of 40 points, which was at least higher than Waltrip's 24 points for his country samba pool party. Robertson's equally (if not more) country jazz routine earned 31 points from the judges.
The night also featured dances from the pros, including one extremely sexy number from Julianne Hough, and an encore dance from Janel and Val. We also got to see Dance Moms' Maddie Ziegler perform her routine from Sia's "Chandelier" video with some help from pro Allison Holker.
And finally, the show took a moment tonight to give us the A to Z's of Dancing with the Stars. R, of course, stood for "romance," and featured a short clip of partners Janel and Val. Rumors have been swirling about the two after they've seemed rather close both onstage and off, so maybe this is good news for all of the DWTS shippers out there.
We'll have to wait for confirmation, but in the meantime, check out our gallery of all the other real-life Dancing with the Stars couples over the years.