‘Dancing With the Stars’ Contestant Lolo Jones ‘Embarrassed,’ ‘Broken’ After Elimination
Olympic hurdler Lolo Jones was “embarrassed” and “broken” after being eliminated from “Dancing with the Stars” on Tuesday night.
The athlete took to Facebook to vent about feeling “rejected by the public.”
“When you go so many times rejected in public you put walls up. When I was dancing last night and messed up I had flashbacks of the three Olympics and that people constantly tease me about,” Jones wrote. “I thought, ‘Oh no here it comes again. People are going to ridicule me.’ I'm so tired of feeling embarrassed.”
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Jones, who finished seventh in the 100 meter hurdle at the 2008 Beijing Olympics after tripping, said she couldn't even fake a smile amongst the rest of the cast after the show and “felt like vomiting.”
“In between the other dances I went in a back room and fought back tears,” Jones added. “I felt so broken. So unlovable. Embarrassed.”
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Her honesty about the elimination — the first of the new season of ABC's hit reality competition series — was tied to a religious lesson she learned from taking the loss so personally.
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“I really wanted to stay on the show and have the layers of hurt wash away by showing the public how hard I work. I wanted to come away a victor for once. I wanted to do so good performing in public that the haters would stop teasing me,” Jones wrote. “But that is my way of thinking. Not Gods. Instead I need to trust God that he would heal my heart. That I would no work so hard for the world to validate and redeem me but know that God already conquered that for me on the cross.”
Watch Jones’ painful elimination (below), which she handled with grace and gratitude while on camera:
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