Grammy Night Brings Beloved Songs and Artists to the ‘Dancing With the Stars’ Ballroom: See the Scores, Who Went Home (Updating Live)

Jenna Dewan and Val Chmerkovskiy walked into Grammy Night as the season's second-highest scoring couple, fresh off a 38-out-of-30 jazz routine to Janet Jackson's "All for You" that included a surprise video message from Jackson herself. They won their dance-off against Tatyana Ali and Jan Ravnik, banking two bonus points. By the time Alfonso Ribeiro announced the results, Dewan and Chmerkovskiy sat tied for second place on the nightly leaderboard with 30 points each — level with Olympic figure skater Amber Glenn and Pasha Pashkov, and just one point behind Harry Shum Jr. and Jenna Johnson's 31. The judges' scores told one story; the viewer votes told another. When the combined total was calculated, Dewan and Chmerkovskiy were the couple sent home, a result that left the ballroom in what multiple outlets described as stunned silence.

The elimination mechanics on Dancing With the Stars have always been opaque. ABC does not publish vote totals, and the live voting window — open only during the East Coast broadcast and for roughly 45 minutes after the final performance on the West Coast — means viewers in different time zones operate under different deadlines. Dewan, a former backup dancer for Janet Jackson with a built-in fan base from the Step Up franchise and a high-profile marriage to Steve Kazee, fit the profile of a contestant who should survive deep into the season. Instead, she became the highest-profile casualty yet of a format that rewards momentum and narrative as much as technique. The Hollywood Reporter's scoreboard lists her base score as 28/30 plus the 2-point dance-off win, reaching 30. That math matters: without the dance-off victory, she would have finished the night at 28, tied with Ezra Frech and Daniella Karagach at the bottom.

Grammy Night also marked the show's most star-studded musical evening to date. Brandy and Monica performed "The Boy Is Mine" live during Amber Glenn and Ezra Frech's rumba dance-off, prompting co-host Alfonso Ribeiro to joke, "My whole childhood, I wish I was that boy," before announcing the duo's first-ever Las Vegas residency at Resorts World Theatre starting May 29, 2027. Maren Morris appeared in the ballroom for Tatyana Ali's cha-cha to "The Middle," while Sheryl Crow watched Maura Higgins and Mark Ballas dance to "All I Wanna Do." Will.i.am supported Tatyana and Jan Ravnik's tango to "Boom Boom Pow." The parade of Grammy winners underscored the episode's ambition, but it also highlighted a tension: the show's increasing reliance on celebrity cameos and theme nights to generate buzz, even as the core competition produces results that feel disconnected from the judges' expertise.

Seven couples remain for the semifinals. Harry Shum Jr. and Jenna Johnson hold a narrow lead at 31 points after a salsa to Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars's "Die With A Smile" that fell one point short of perfection. Amber Glenn and Pasha Pashkov sit at 30. Maura Higgins and Mark Ballas, Connor Wood and Rylee Arnold, Ezra Frech and Daniella Karagach, and Tatyana Ali and Jan Ravnik are clustered between 27 and 29. The compression at the bottom — four couples separated by just two points — means next week's viewer votes will likely decide multiple eliminations in a double-elimination format that ABC has used in previous semifinal weeks. The only certainty is that the scoring system, the voting window, and the undisclosed vote totals will continue to produce outcomes that the judges' table cannot explain.