Charity Lawson opens up about mental health issues on DWTS
Charity Lawson.
Dia Dipasupil/Getty ImagesCharity Lawson opened up about the mental health issues she faced during her stay Dancing with the stars season 32.
“While Dancing with the stars was amazing, I literally went through hell and back with my mental health on that show,” Lawson, 28, said on the Monday, July 29 episode Cheryl Burke‘S ‘Sex, lies and spray tans’ podcast.
Lawson thought the hardest part would be the ‘physical’ aspects of dancing. However, she confessed that the occasion took a toll on her ‘mentally’ and ’emotionally’.
The former Bachelorette revealed that she was approached DWTS while her season of the dating show aired in 2023. Although Lawson knew this opportunity was a “once in a lifetime” opportunity, she wasn’t sure if she would accept it because of her relationship with her fiancé Dotun Olubeko was new.
Over the years, many members of Bachelor Nation have joined Dancing With the Stars following their search for romance, but not everyone has taken home the mirror ball. Melissa Rycroft was the first Bachelor contestant to join the series in 2009. Although she didn’t win her season, she was asked back for an all-stars game. […]
“Before I started this, I was very hesitant because I didn’t know if I could handle it [it.] Dotun was obviously my biggest supporter and he said, ‘Yes, do it, I will be with you every step of the way,'” she explained. “But I didn’t know it hit me like a ton of bricks. Week three or four I thought, “I don’t know.”
While on the show, Lawson struggled with the same criticism she received from the judges every week. The panel, including Carrie Ann Inaba, Bruno Tonioli And Derek Houghchallenged Lawson to bring more emotion into her dancing with partner Artem Chigvintsev. However, Lawson wasn’t sure how exactly to do that, given her lack of performing background.
“I was so stuck in my head that I was just trying to do these little things that I knew for myself. It’s almost like a clock counting down and every week I’m running out of time and not doing enough,” she thought. “And that was so crushing for me to say to myself and even have those thoughts in my head of, ‘I’m not doing enough,’ knowing that I was giving everything I was capable of and whatever the resources I had at the time had to work.”
In addition to the harsh reactions from the judges, Lawson revealed that she also suffered from bullying DWTS fans. Lawson knew she could expect criticism from people online on reality TV, but she didn’t think so DWTS viewers would call her “conceited,” “entitled,” or the “biggest bitch of the cast.”
“It was so damaging, night in, night out… It was horrible,” she recalled. “I talked about it with Artem, but with no one [else] knew. The pros didn’t know, no one knew what was going on until I was like, ‘Look at my comments whenever I post something or something about me and Artem is shared on the Dancing with the stars page.'”
The online feedback got so bad for Lawson that she had to block and filter her personal social media page, but the official one DWTS The comments on the account were not filtered and the negativity persisted. Lawson said that towards the end of the season she decided to turn to Chigvintsev, 42, about it and that he was “confused” by the reactions online. Lawson claimed that they went to the show’s executives about this, but at that point the situation was “too far gone.” The bullying didn’t stop and Lawson continued to turn to Chigvintsev, who offered “as much support as he could.”
Over the years, Dancing with the Stars has crowned numerous winners. In June 2005, ABC launched the American version of the British series Strictly Come Dancing. Each season a celebrity teams up with a professional dancer as they try out a new style of ballroom dancing. Carrie Ann Inaba, Bruno Tonioli and Len Goodman served […]
“I just had to suppress it,” she said Monday. “And it honestly got to the point where I was just trying to survive, I’m just trying to survive the season.”
Lawson eventually made it to the DWTS finals, finishing in fourth place. Xochitl Gomez And Valentin Chmerkovskiy finally took the mirror ball home.
Although Lawson didn’t speak out about her struggles on the show when it aired last year, she decided to come forward about the bullying in an effort to “advocate” for future contestants so they don’t have to go through a similar situation. .
