The leader board changed last night on Dancing With the Stars as Pussycat Dolls singer Nicole Scherzinger and Las Vegas pro partner Derek Hough quickstepped -- or didn’t, rather -- their way behind new leaders Olympic figure skating gold medalist Evan Lysacek and partner Anna Trebunskaya.
In fact, Nicole and Derek were in a tie for second place with ESPN host Erin Andrews and her pro partner, Le Reve choreographer and ballroom bad boy Maksim Chmerkovskiy.
Little changed down on the bottom rung, with legendary astronaut Buzz Aldrin with Ashly Costa and reality TV star Kate Gosselin with Tony Dovolani far behind the group. Tonight’s second elimination show will probably see one of them being kicked off after a performance by Reba McEntire and an acoustic paso doble.
Meantime, the rest of the stars are all bunched up in the middle with nearly equal scores. Now it’s totally up to the viewers. Maybe they will shake up the ABC hit series and cut a celebrity from that tight grouping to surprise yet again.
Added to the drama was the sad situation involving death-threat emails directed toward Erin. Security was beefed up, and she still danced with Maks, vowing not to quit despite the threats. The FBI is reportedly investigating this new circumstance, which comes after a stalker of Erin was recently given a jail sentence.