FORMER Bachelorette Charity Lawson revealed she received death threats during her time on Dancing with the Stars.
Charity, 28, admitted she went through “hell and back with my mental health” while filming the ABC reality show, adding that it was “a lot worse than Bachelor and Bachelorette,” in a new interview.
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In the last episode of Cheryl Burke’s Sex, Lies and Tanning podcast, Charity called for DWTS to have an “on-set therapist” as she reflected on the impact the long-running dance competition has had on her emotional well-being.
Charity, who is a therapist, told Cheryl, 40: “I’m surprised you guys don’t [have a therapist]. Honestly, I’m so surprised because literally, even though Dancing With the Stars was great, I literally went through hell and back with my mental health on that show.
“It hit me like a ton of bricks.”
Charity was partnered with professional dancer Artem Chigvintsev during season 32 of DWTS, which premiered in September 2023.
When Cheryl said it was “shocking” to learn that Charity was bullied by social media trolls during the competition, she replied: “I don’t know if it’s shocking. I think to some extent it was expected.”
She remembers signing up for the show thinking it “would be a piece of cake” after her time as the lead on The Bachelorette, but ended up being blindsided by the incessant bullying, including “receiving death threats for existing.”
“I went into the DWTS fan base like, ‘This is going to be a piece of cake,’ only for it to be…almost to the point where it was so much worse than Bachelor and Bachelorette,” Charity said.
“I was getting death threats for existing… for not performing enough, for being vain, for being entitled, for being the biggest idiot in the cast. It’s crazy,” she continued.
Charity told Cheryl that she finally told Artem about the hateful comments about her and DWTS’ social media accounts, adding that her dance partner even brought it up with the show’s executives.
“If you look in comparison to all the other contestants this season, they don’t have that in their comments… I’m literally existing and being called an idiot,” she continued. “It was so damaging night after night.”
Charity, who finished fourth, admitted she sometimes expected to be “eliminated” from the show.
She explained: “I just had to suppress it and I got to the point where I was like, I’m just trying to survive. I’m just trying to get out of the season.
“There were weeks where I came home from rehearsal and I was like, I literally hope I forget my steps and get eliminated… It’s a really dark place,” Charity added.
Charity and Cheryl, who was a professional dancer on the show for 25 seasons, also discussed how video packages are allegedly edited to fit a certain type of narrative.
“That’s how I was bragging about my scores, but I’m only talking about them because you asked me,” Charity said.
She continued: “It was really frustrating when I started seeing my packages painted this way; it’s almost skewing viewers in this, ‘All she cares about is the scores’ way. [and] ‘She thinks she’s better than everyone.'”
US Sun has contacted DWTS representatives for comment.
During the hour-long podcast episode, Charity said that although she can only talk about her experience on DWTS, she ultimately felt it was important to speak out because of “the difference I have having to go through this life as a black woman and being on a reality TV show.”
“It’s like the same things just aren’t protected,” she added.
When asked if she felt her race impacted the outcome of DWTS, Charity responded, “Yes.”
Charity is a child and family therapist from Columbus, Georgia.
She appeared as a contestant on Zach Shallcross’ season of The Bachelor before Charity was eliminated in the eighth week of the reality dating show.
In March 2023, host Jesse Palmer announced that Charity would lead season 20 of The Bachelorette during Zach’s “Women Tell All” episode.
Charity went on to find love with Brooklynite Dotun Olubeko, and the pair got engaged after she gave him her final rose during the season finale.
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This story originally appeared on The-sun.com read the full story
